


Behind the Sun

by firetrap



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ancient Egypt, Dimension Travel, Gemshipping, Language Barrier, M/M, One-Sided Angstshipping, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Post-Dark Side Of Dimensions, Slow Burn, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2020-10-17 15:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20623592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firetrap/pseuds/firetrap
Summary: Once a person disappears, everything about them becomes a number.





	1. haunting of the silence

_Once a person disappears, everything about them suddenly becomes a number._

_For instance, the date of their disappearance—the last day they were seen by an individual or another, the address, if possible._

_Numbers of a different kind are printed on thin sheets of paper bought in bulk, an exact number estimated by his father who has meticulously calculated the amount of flyers he thinks are necessary to place around cities, meticulously calculated the total cost of the job, and whether he would have enough left over to cover expenses, like funding a separate search party—and for a reward, too. _

_A picture of a missing person is printed on those papers, a phone number inscribed just below, followed by the unanswered question in bright red Arabic— Have you seen me?— Name in English and script, Nationality, Date of Birth, Residence, a short description of where he was last seen, what he wore, what he was doing at the place— and other phone numbers to contact: the Luxor police and the Japanese Embassy in Cairo._

_They are a lifeline to him— those numbers, a specially opened telephone account for a father who wants answers, and his son, back._

_With time, the flyers fade._

_It rains during the rainy season and the paper flyers, with their weak resolution, look as if though they’ll melt into the surface of walls and windows._

_During the heat waves that follow, the posters fade and crumble until extinction._

_The numbers rise:_

_Days since disappearance turn from one, are succeeded by two, which eventually turn into seven and then they’re being counted in weeks. Soon, his father begins counting the months—January, March, back to October. He knows time has passed but it's all a blur when he buries himself in work, always sitting next to a telephone, hoping with a fading hope that someone will call._

_He hangs on to the voice he'd often heard over the phone, a sparse long-distance call on holidays, birthdays. Never without a believable reason. He hadn’t wanted to be a bother._

_Does he count the years?_

_A missing person turns into a number himself after enough time passes—a file, a case number, all entered into the local police database of a computer whose information is read in digits of 0s and 1s._

_It’s impossibly to tell him apart from the cases above his and the cases below. The numbers mesh into a wall of digits that get scrolled past and into oblivion— forgotten._

_He becomes obsolete in a wall of numbers._

_He becomes lost, there, too._

_There is another number—it’s important to him._

_It’s the number of a license plate on the back of a black motorcycle, the last sign of modernity he saw before his disappearance. He’d touched it. Sometimes, in the darkness of night, he would feel the lingering cold sensation of the metal of the backseat on the tips of his fingers during the right season._

_For the most part though, in an endless world of numbers, the most important number is the one which symbolizes those who remember him— _

_And the single one of someone who never had the option of giving up._

* * *

It all began some weeks after Ryou’s twentieth birthday, of which, he celebrated in his apartment surrounded by a total of zero friends—by no fault of their own—and with one computer hooked up in the corner of his living room. What he did have as a substitution for their physical presence was a headset bought some days earlier, their faces digitally plastered on his monitor, and the babble of their voices, coupled with the occasional static of long-distance interference.

Ryou bit a cake and filling escaped from the back, regretfully landing on the packaging. He put it aside and adjusted his headphones with one sugared hand. Through the earpiece, Anzu continued her excited announcement involving her dance company.

“We’ve already started rehearsals—since I’m a first year, there’s no way I’ll be let into the performances and stuff like that, but maybe if I make a good impression—do you think?” She leaned into the camera and her features were comically enhanced with the proximity. It was a question meant to go unanswered, and with a sigh, she distanced herself and landed in her chair to ponder her own inquiry.

To everyone’s sadness, Anzu had left for New York to study dance, and although it made Ryou a little unhappy to lose one of his closer friends to distance, he felt a second hand-type of delight seeing how her dreams were slowly becoming a reality.

Both Yugi and Ryou nodded through her flurry of words, exchanging equal shrugs in resignation. Not because Anzu was the one doing most of the talking, but because they had little to say in respect to her life. Ryou patiently listened as she continued to describe outfits and coordinated acts, taking a moment to open another plastic-wrapped pastry from his nearby and quickly depleting stash.

To Ryou, Anzu had the most exciting life out of anyone.

Yugi had continued to work at his Grandpa’s game store, Honda started taking over his family’s factory as sub-boss, and Jonouchi still had his same part time jobs, though Ryou knew, on the side, he entered dueling tournaments and did fairly well for himself in such. The life of a famous duelist still seemed far away for Jonouchi, but Ryou had not been able to cultivate much interest in Duel Monsters to follow his career with close scrutiny—at least not in the way he used to.

“—and I heard from one of my roommates that some of the upperclassmen got hired by a really famous circus!” Anzu kept gesturing complicated movements with her hands, quick and flexible as the dancers who she mimicked. “Can you imagine? But,” she paused, pensive, “I’m still not sure if I’ll go the theater route or ballet or…Jazz?—argh! Why is this so hard?” She slumped in her seat, twirling around in the chair, mopey, and looking as though she had been sucked into the fabric cushioning.

“Oh!” She sat up as if she’d been pricked. “I’ll have to work on my English, too, if I want them to notice me. I’m still scared that I won’t be able to understand anyone if they start speaking too fast,” she elaborated, laughing through the speaker, muffling it.

Ryou picked up another snack cake, happily biting into it. Yugi did the same with a melon bread, both giving everyone a good minute of audio of nothing but masticating sounds.

“You already know English, Anzu,” Yugi chimed after swallowing his morsel. “You’ve lived in America for the whole summer now.”

There was a ring from Ryou’s computer, a picture right next to it, requesting connection. He clicked the incoming call, adding Honda to the group.

“Yeah, I guess.” She trailed off, noticing the fourth addition to their call.

“Hey, guys,” Honda said, interrupting any of Anzu’s remaining explanation. “Sorry I’m late to the party.” His mic was muffled with sighs and groans, and a child’s excited screaming in the background. “Late shift at the factory. My dad’s been on my ass about not meeting revenue for the month and I had to stay to rework some of the inventory.” He let out a loud breath of air and plopped himself heavily on the chair. It wasn’t long before Joji, Honda’s nephew, came into view and yanked the headphones off his head. There was a clear view of a young boy running away in gleeful mischief and Honda barreling after him, body surprisingly limber when angry.

“Huh, hey!—C’mere you little shit!”

When there were no sounds coming from Honda’s line, Anzu sighed, breaking the silence.

“Honestly—he does that every time. He should know by now to close the door at least.” She took a sip of her drink and set it down.

Ryou moused over his screen, looking at the length of their calls. It was getting late, especially for Anzu who lived abroad and already sacrificed a part of her sleep to wake up early enough to talk before her classes started. Yugi’s call had been the longest with the timer ticking beyond two hours. Anzu’s had started shortly after, quickly becoming the primary speaker of their get-together.

Ryou’s eyes lingered on the dim icon of a contact who hadn’t logged on in almost a week. _ M. Ishtar _—the name read.

“You were saying—Anzu,” Ryou said, blinking, and returning his attention to those present.

“Oh!”

Someone’s shadow had appeared behind her and the dark figure walked out of the room, slowly shutting the door after.

“Sorry, everyone. I think I’m making too much noise. It’s basically morning here and I have to get _ some _sleep before my afternoon classes.” Her voice had lowered into a whisper and she seemed to shield her screen with a hand. “Oh, you guys. I wish I could be there right now,” she said, leaning her hands onto her chin.

“It’s okay,” Ryou said, a pang of sadness developing at the prospect of parting again. “We can talk some other time.”

Anzu beamed, though the dark circles were noticeable and her voice had adopted grogginess as the night progressed.

Her departure from the group chat left somewhat of a damper on the remaining conversations.

Honda had come back on screen, headset decorated with crooked pieces of tape placed over the soft padding of the earphones, and while that caused in part, some teasing, the exhaustion from helping run a factory was evident, and he shuffled to his bed. Not long after, his sister came into the room and apologized, turning off the computer for him.

It left only Yugi and Ryou, exchanging ideas for which new games to buy and talking about which releases they were excited for come early December.

“It’s too bad Jonouchi couldn’t come. He told me to tell you,” Yugi started after picking up some real food that his mother had brought up earlier, “that it was because his sister was getting a check up at the hospital and he had to stay over for a while. Maybe he can make it later.” He took a sip of his carbonated drink.

“Yeah—our schedules are all over the place,” Ryou said, hiding a wry smile behind a slice of sweet bread. “I think Ryuji went with his dad to pitch Dice Monsters to some company, too. And Mal—”

There was a shuffle behind Yugi’s desk. He scrambled to open the door to hear better.

“Ah—I think that’s Grandpa calling me,” Yugi informed with a hint of resignation. “He probably needs me to help him unpack some boxes or reaching the high shelf.” He made a motion to exit, but then abruptly stopped, eyes widening with a twinkle. “Hey, maybe you can come over tomorrow? If you tell Grandpa it’s your birthday, he might give you a discount. He did that with Anzu once.”

Ryou chewed on his straw, hiding a genuine smile.

“I don’t think he did that because it was her birthday.”

“Oh, really? Why else—?”

From the other side of his door, a woman of average stature with short brown hair, appeared, looking a bit miffed. The pink of her apron swayed around her knees with her brisk pace as she approached her son.

“Don’t you hear Grandpa calling you—oh, you’re busy.” She looked a little apologetic at having interrupted him, but upon noticing the screen and the person on it, her face beamed as she bent over Yugi’s shoulder, staring directly at the camera.

“Why, hello, Bakura! It’s Bakura, isn’t it? He can hear me, right?”

“Hello, Mrs. Mutou,” Ryou said, nodding. He waved and Yugi’s mother reciprocated the gesture with a grin that resembled Yugi’s own.

“How are you doing? Are you eating well? You haven’t visited in some time—I was starting to worry. Tell him, Yugi. I’ve been telling you this all month, right?”

“Mom…he can hear you…”

“Ah, well that’s good…” she said, brushing some stray hairs behind her ears with deliberate gestures to fix her hair.

“You’ll have to excuse me and Yugi. We have to make sure everything in Grandpa’s store is clean and put away for the night before he goes to bed.”

“Oh, yes—um, of course,” Ryou replied, mindful of his manners. It was late, and he and Yugi had said enough to each other for a whole evening. 

Yugi came into view, wincing in silent apology.

“Leave me a message if anything comes up,” he said. Mrs. Mutou hovered behind him, patient as she watched the virtual exchange. “See ya!”

With Yugi’s goodbye, Ryou was left with the type of ringing silence that is only achieved after a particularly lively event. His birthday, having been such, made the ended connection resonate much worse by reminding him his apartment was quite empty and devoid.

He turned in his chair, the sun beyond the window leaving golden specks on a darkening sky. He swiveled back in his seat, checking the offline indicator next to _ M. Ishtar_. For a brief moment, his hand reached for his mouse, hovering the pointer on the message icon, but the white arrow was instead redirected to the red ‘x’ in the corner, exiting the entire webpage altogether.

Deciding to gather wrapper after wrapper of processed foods, Ryou tossed his trash into the kitchen bin and plopped down onto the more comfortable seating that was his couch.

His father hadn’t yet called, and Ryou had a few more hours left to lounge in lazy pursuit of daydreams and weekday television. It was really a shame that his birthday had been on a Monday—everyone was busy enough with school and personal lives that making invitations for games and karaoke had been met with excuses and heavy apologies. The event led him to realize that things weren’t like before when they were in high school, where their most pressing responsibilities were tests they forgot to study for or a project they had all stayed up for to complete.

Things were different.

The differences hung heavy in the silent air and between empty spaces.

His untouched miniatures, gathering dust and abandoned in a corner of his game room, were a testament to _ how _ different things were. Even Ryou hadn't had much interest in writing a new campaign, for who could he find that would be willing to participate?

Ryou let his head fall back on the sofa’s armrest.

The quiet, too, was further proof that everything—everything that was his life—had changed.

It was a type of solitude Ryou wasn't sure he could ever grow used to. It was too— he raised his hand, contemplating the scar left by the unpredictability of the past—

It was too _ peaceful_, he decided. 

Too _ normal_, but in an unexpected, unpleasant way that made him wait and count and wait and count and wait and count the days that seemed like days and nothing more.

He _ had _ counted—

Already it had been two years since the Spirit of the Ring—Bakura—had completely disappeared from his life.

The space he had filled was only made apparent when he was no longer there.

Ryou, taking him for granted when he had been a disembodied voice inside his head, now felt anxious, empty, without the previously ever-present nearness of it—of him.

He listened to the unfilled silence and turned his head to pick up the remote and switch on his television.

Though enough time had passed to conclude that Bakura was never going to return—not after the Millennium Items were destroyed with Atem’s momentary heroic resurgence and departure—Ryou still had some inkling of belief in Bakura’s seeming immortality to think he would defy yet another call to the afterlife.

Ryou had looked and found the cracked dice that once held a part of Bakura’s soul, had inspected the small miniature villager made in their image, checking for anomalies, had even kept a scrutinizing eye on Yugi, all because he knew Bakura had an almost obsessive sense of over-preparedness when it came to his self-preservation. He had found nothing—sensed no traces of his presence in any of those things. Sometimes, he thought he did, but after rationalizing with himself, he understood those feelings to be hope, and just hope.

Not finding the television distracting enough, Ryou sat up with a limber heave off the cushions, checking the sun’s trajectory across the sky to see if it was still too early for him to sleep. The following day he was to go to one of his most demanding classes and he liked to stock up on enough sleep as he could to keep his mind fresh during lecture.

It was probably the only other thing that had changed in his life—school, and which train he took to get there.

Ryou had enrolled at the local university near Domino, despite his father’s insistence to take entrance exams to more prestigious schools around the country, like Tokyo University, or to apply to schools abroad.

Of course, they both know that with Ryou’s grades, he would probably not even be considered a contender in attending any of those, but Ryou thought it was probably his father’s way of pushing him to strive further than remaining a recluse with a creative hobby. He’d even offered to pay his tuition if he chose to accompany Anzu in New York.

Ryou internally scoffed at the idea of bumbling around New York City like a tourist while Anzu settled into her dance classes. He highly preferred to remain in one constant spot in case— 

In case Bakura came back.

He blew out a shaky breath at the thought, taking a stiff journey to the window and letting in a much-needed breeze of fresh air.

Two years.

Two years, and not a sign.

Perhaps his father was right.

His father may not have known about Bakura, but if Ryou was as transparent as Bakura repeatedly told him, it would be obvious to anyone what he was doing.

Maybe—it was time to move on.

Everybody else had had closure with Atem. Yugi even had the luxury to tell him goodbye, something Ryou hadn’t had with Bakura.

The lack of closure within him was an ache that echoed throughout; a wound that kept bleeding no matter how much he left it alone.

His hand touched the center of his chest, an ugly, lingering habit he could never rid himself of.

Aigami—Diva—had targeted him because of Bakura not less than a year past. A revenge, he called it, for the wrongdoings the Spirit of the Millennium Ring had caused him.

Ryou remembered the instance when he was transported to the parallel dimension. The thing that he recalled most fiercely was just before it. The other person with Diva—Mani—had appeared, holding the Ring just out of reach.

His heart had almost leapt from his chest, a primal drive inside Ryou wanting to connect to it.

The Spirit was gone.

The Ring was an empty husk with corrosive hatred embedded deep in the gold.

Still, Ryou had wanted the Ring to call to him. He wanted it to choose him.

It didn’t.

Not without Bakura.

The events that transpired during the Diva fiasco ended with Ryou without so much as touching the Millennium Ring. Upon his return, he saw the Millennium Puzzle dissolve between Atem’s fingers. The rest of the Items had done the same in the privacy of their known existence.

A second opportunity for goodbye had slipped through his own fingers, leaving only want and the sense that he would wait forever—if he let himself.

Ryou felt a gentle breeze brush his cheek, and he sighed, as a bird—a finch, most likely—flew past south, following an invisible path through the clouds. He blinked himself out of another reverie, running a hand over the solidness of the banister.

He didn’t have much time to re-settle himself back into the present reality when the phone rang, and he had to jog back to his kitchen where it hung.

Picking it up and hearing the voice on the other side, he was only a little surprised to learn it was his father.

“I’m doing okay,” he said, answering the man’s inquiry over his health.

“That’s good. Did you have a good day today? It’s around seven there, right? It’s almost noon here. Sometimes I forget the time difference.”

“It’s almost seven, here,” Ryou confirmed, pausing. “You’re taking a break?”

The calls didn’t always take long, and he had learned a long time ago his father would painstakingly take time out of a lunch break, sometimes not lasting the whole time frame if there was an urgent matter elsewhere to attend to, for a telephone call. Even so, Ryou took the receiver and sat on the sofa, bringing his legs up to a more bearable position.

“Well, in any case, I hope you had a good birthday.” He cleared his throat, presumably of phlegm, which was common with his exposure to sandy environments. “I’ve sent some, er—I’ve sent some gifts already earlier this week. I don’t suppose they’ve arrived?”

“Oh, you did?” Ryou dug himself a nest between the cushions.

“Yes—well, it’s nothing really. Just some silly thing,” his father responded with a chuckle, modesty an obvious hereditary trait in the Bakura family.

Ryou half-listened as his father went on a tangent about work, something he often did when there was silence to fill—abundant in a long-distance relationship with family. He spoke of a personal project in finding a coveted relic which dated back to the first century and that he would most likely begin his search along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.

He still couldn’t discern how his father had an inclination for adventure. From what little he remembered traveling with him, up until his middle school years when he was deemed old enough to live on his own, Ryou saw him as reserved, speaking only to relay orders of where to dig, and he himself would hardly call that social. Despite his lack of charisma, his father’s fascination and ability to absorb other cultures and their customs was something Ryou still admired. He told himself, perhaps one day, when the days of lectures grew too repetitive—or more honestly—when the ringing reality of his current isolated life grew too hollow, he might travel as his father, searching for something to hold on to in an otherwise empty life.

His father had at some point had begun to tell him of the history around the Moroccan region and why he thought the sought-after artifact might be undersea. Ryou scratched at the antenna on the receiver, hearing the _ click, click _over his father’s flat tone.

“Dad—”

His father abruptly stopped mid-sentence, as though startled by his son’s interjection, not expecting it.

“Sorry, did you say something or was that the connection cutting off?”

Indeed, their phone conversation’s signal was shoddy at best—sometimes they spent minutes listening to garbled voices and inquires of ‘Can you hear me?’ over a babble of Arabic in the background.

Ryou could have stopped himself then, saying he had said nothing at all.

His father waited in silence, half-expecting, probably, to have to restart the call.

Ryou took a breath, curling his fingers around a receiver in an unrelenting grip.

“Dad,” he started again, knowing there was no going back. “I’ve been thinking about some things.”

His father went quiet again, most likely trying to discern the shift in tone his son’s voice had taken, along with the sudden interest in the usually one-sided conversation.

After a second’s pause, he encouraged Ryou to continue with what was on his mind.

“What is it?”

Prompted by the mundane, his repetitive unfulfilling life, he chose to tell it to his father, someone who lived a life which was anything but similar to Ryou’s.

What came out of Ryou was slow to start, but when he began to speak—really speak and be listened to—the flurry of pent up emotion that had otherwise been buried inside himself flowed out of him in torrents. He talked in choppy segments of phrases, barely counting as sentences. He told his father of his unhappiness in school, the bare minimum of the beginning of his friends’ estrangement, kept to himself his dissatisfaction with how his closest relationship had been with a man who had died three thousand years ago. His life was full of memories of things that had been—of ghosts—and Ryou was unable to let go.

When he was finished, he regretted immediately the weakness in him to remain engulfed in silence. His mouth gaped in a noiseless movement, the words having been exhausted and his face growing hot with the passing moment waiting for his father to say something—_ anything _.

Ryou was just about ready to hang up and call back the next day to say the call had been dropped, simply to not to have to keep listening to the torturing silence he had endured for years, coming from those who were gone, and kept enduring with the people who were still supposed to be there for him.

His thumb was ready to press the button to end the call—

When his father told him that rang in tandem with his loneliness.

“Well—it’s just part of growing up, Ryou. People—they leave. They come,” he paused, “and they go.”

He could have thrown the phone across the room.

If anyone knew better that people came and went, it was Ryou, and having his father tell him something they _ both _ knew wasn’t helpful or reassuring. While he silently fumed and thought about ending the call, his father continued.

“Have you considered—I don’t know—” He cleared his throat, not confident in suggesting anything that might sound discouraging.

After a hesitant intake of air, his father asked, “Do you still have a good grasp on Arabic?” The tentative tone of his voice transmitted through the line and into Ryou.

He was just as tentative in his answer.

“Yes. I—I think so.” His mouth had gone dry. “Are you—are you asking if I want to visit you?” The suggestion, unforeseen, was enough to make him forget about his brief flash of anger.

He could almost imagine his father rubbing at the hairs on his chin in the way that meant he didn’t really want to answer a question in fear of being blamed for an awful decision.

“You could, yes, if that’s what you’re proposing,” he said, easily deflecting.

Ryou was quiet. His palms had become sweaty.

There was one place left he hadn’t had an opportunity to search for Bakura. The success rate was zero—less than zero, if there was such a thing in probability—but he needed to go. His happiness, his ability to finally move on, depended on it.

He had to go—

If only to say goodbye.

If only to find nothing and accept it.

He swallowed.

“When can I go?” His voice trembled, recovering quickly with the prospect of visiting the final rune of his life.

His father sighed, mumbling incoherently about being preoccupied with projects.

“Well, it wouldn’t be anytime soon. I’m just getting started with designating the search in Morocco. I won’t have much time to spare elsewhere until—”

“That’s all right. I could—I can maybe help,” he said, interrupting.

On the other side of the call, his father noted the climb of the sun directly above his head.

“Ryou,” he said, chastising.

Ryou shut his mouth, careful not to destroy the opportunity that had manifested from their conversation.

“I’m doing this just this once,” he continued. “I want you to have a steady school career, but university isn’t cheap, and I don’t want you to keep switching schools as you please this time around. It’s time—” his flow stuttered, evidence of an inexperienced parent not knowing how to speak to his now adult son. “It’s time you became more disciplined in your studies,” he finished.

Hearing that, Ryou felt his heart plummet. He knew what he must have looked like during high school to his father; an irresponsible teenager discontent with school and demanding to be moved to another one capriciously. Apart from that, his lack of high marks might have been another disappointment that his father kept to himself.

But what could he say?

That he fell in love with a ghost of a man who had left him one day without a goodbye, left to pick up the pieces of anotherwise unsatisfying life?

He bit his lip, mindful of all the things within him he could never tell anybody.

“I—understand,” he told his father, terse.

“Good,” his father said. “As long as we’re on the same page.” There was a moment of pure static where his father must have shifted his phone to another hand, and Ryou imagined him taking the small pocket notebook where he marked in the accompanying calendar for events.

“Right now I’m in…Rabat.” There was a pause—probably a page flip. “I can probably head to Luxor—Professor Yoshimori will be there in a few weeks—around October the first. I can probably call him so you don’t have to make the trip alone.”

A light feeling lifted Ryou from his slumped position on the sofa.

“Oh—okay.” He was trying his hardest not to be overly emotional of the future visit.

“Ryou,” his father said again, testing the paternal tone in his mouth. “Please—please—do give your school another try again. Use these weeks to—to really think about what it is you want to do in life. I’m giving you this chance at a break just this once but—,” he broke off, releasing a breath in place of not being able to fill the blank. He began again: “I’ll call you once I have everything arranged with Yoshimori.”

Ryou gripped the receiver, slippery with the sweat on his fingers.

His father was trying to help him on a path to independence, but his words had sent feelings of shame and embarrassment through him. Apparently, he was thought of as uncommitted, and that somehow hurt more than his own self-diagnosis of being a total disappointment as the first and only son.

His fingers twisted the hem of his shirt.

“I understand.”

His father announced the end of his lunch break, leaving him with a list of responsibilities to tend to before making the trip down to Egypt. When he was finished, and when Ryou had repeated them all to prove he had been listening, he coughed to one side.

“If that’s everything,” he cleared his throat, “please take care of yourself.”

“Okay,” Ryou said, drumming his fingers in his lap.

“Ryou?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

Ryou blinked, stunned for a moment.

He looked at the clock on his wall, unable to measure how long it was he’d heard those words from his father. His eyes fell to his idle hand.

“I love you, too,” he told him.

* * *

It wasn’t until mid-October that Ryou finally did step foot at the Luxor International Airport. Two overlays—one overnight—later, and Ryou was finally in the city he had been thinking about for the past half month.

A city he hadn’t seen in almost two years.

The last time had visited Luxor had been with friends, a tight knit group on their way to the ruins where the Mortuary Tablet was located.

Though, now, the Millennium Stone lay shattered meters below the ground, and he was with a colleague of his father, his friends comfortably, thousands of kilometers away, unaware of his trip.

Ryou walked behind Professor Yoshimori, who as Ryou had soon come to learn, was more of a pack rat than he. 

Behind him, the professor dragged a string of luggage. It was easy to move it with the attached wheels, but the size of each individual suitcase amassed into one intimidating caravan of baggage.

“We’re taking a taxi to the—God have mercy—to the hotel,” he said with a hard pull when the wheel got caught on an uneven part of the pavement. “It’s not far from the museum, but I don’t want to lug around all this any longer than I have to,” he said, gesturing to the suitcases. “Oh, and don’t worry—before you give me that look.” He panted, coming to a stop at the edge of the airport where the taxi drivers gathered. “We’re staying at the Nefertiri this time,” he said, enunciating the syllables of the hotel’s name. “It’s a bit farther,” he shrugged, “but the restaurants are within walking distance.” He turned to Ryou. “Just two eligible bachelors out on the town, eh, Ryou?”

Ryou grimaced, but hid it well with his best attempt to sound a convincing laugh to accompany Mr. Yoshimori’s own.

The trip wasn’t long, along a fairly straightforward, convenient road that led away from the airport. An additional few winding streets later, and a lone path opened into a busy area of hotels and restaurants, clearly for tourists, on the edge of the Nile river. There were domed mosques and churches of Roman architecture scattered to invite disciples in both Arabic and English, accommodating locals and visiting foreigners.

Arriving, Professor Yoshimori checked into his room, Ryou doing the same, glad he hadn’t packed as much as the other when they both realized the elevator wouldn’t allow for weight surpassing that of which they already carried, combined. Glad, again, he was for the overlay in Cairo, where they were allowed a fulfilling night of sleep after the plane ride from Tokyo. They left their things, happy to rid themselves of their respective burdens and hailed another yellow cab to meet with Mr. Bakura, who was already waiting at the museum.

The older Bakura was wanting to make arrangements to perhaps allow for an exchange in exhibits between the Luxor Museum and Domino.

The palm trees surrounding the local museum signaled their arrival. Ryou didn’t know where his father was exactly, but Yoshimori was happy enough to lead the way. The two didn’t walk further than a few meters past the entrance when two figures appeared, saving them from searching.

Ryou’s father had emerged from behind a door, Isis Ishtar, someone who Ryou hadn’t expected, stepping around him to greet Yoshimori in a stoic, businesslike manner.

Ryou looked briefly for her younger brother, but upon not seeing him, nor Rishid to inquire after him, Ryou stepped back behind the group of associates, feeling disappointed and left out of their collective acquaintanceship.

Isis directed her glance to him in acknowledgement when the older men greeted each other in an overt friendly manner. Leaving the two, she approached Ryou but remained distant.

“Hello, Bakura,” she said, and Ryou should have questioned how easily she remembered his name. Not that it didn’t make him feel a little better, but he wasn’t the most memorable of people.

“How have you been?” It felt as though it were only the two of them with Yoshimori and his father becoming acquainted with each other again. “We haven’t seen each other since—”

“Since I came here with Yugi,” he finished for her, wanting to participate in the budding, though aloof, conversation.

Her head lifted and then came down in an uneasy nod.

“Ah. Yes. I remember,” she said, the corners of her lips lifting for the smallest of moments.

“You two know each other?” Ryou’s father interjected, overhearing their conversation.

Ryou and Isis traded glances, and the older woman turned to his father, nodding slowly.

“Yes, we—met—during one of my last trips to Japan. I was in charge of one of the Egyptian exhibits there at the time and entered a dueling tournament.”

“Ms. Ishtar, I didn’t know you were a fan of card games!” Yoshimori commented, fascinated by the new discovery of her hobbies.

“Well, it was my brothers who made me participate,” Isis said, pressing her mouth together into another forced smile. Ryou saw how her hands tensed as she folded them passively in front of her.

Mr, Bakura turned to Ryou, brow furrowing behind the frames of his glasses.

“I didn’t know you had been in—in—what did you call it? A dueling tournament? For a card game, you said?” he asked, turning to Yoshimori who nodded enthusiastically.

The professor may have looked jovial, but Ryou was anything but. The blood in his vessels had ran cold. Ryou raced to think of what to tell his father.

“Y-yeah,” he began. His best course of action was to stick as close to the truth as possible. If, on the slim chance, his father wanted to verify his inclusion in Kaiba’s Battle City tournament, then it was better to give some facts on the outcome of the event.

“I was—I ended up in the top eight,” Ryou said, mentally calculating whether it had been top eight or top four.

He caught sight of the way Isis’s eyes twinkled, but she blinked and shifted her gaze away from him, keeping to herself any comments that she might have said elsewhere.

“Top eight! I’m not sure if I understand the craze the younger generation has with these so-called _ card games_, but that sounds quite impressive.”

Yoshimori nodded in agreement. “Yes, quite.”

Isis turned on her heel.

“Indeed, it is,” she said over her shoulder.

The group spoke at once about arrangements to deliver a new exhibition to Domino Museum, one that wasn’t about a nameless pharaoh and his dynasty, but a more modern demonstration surrounding the new kingdom after his death and the kings that followed.

Ryou was mildly interested at first, but his attention was soon consumed in favor of thinking of something to eat. The museum didn’t have accommodations such as a cafeteria, but he didn’t want to appear rude leaving them all to return to his hotel and the nearby restaurants he’d seen. Apart from that, tourist areas were likely to speak English, and Ryou, only having enough Arabic to call conversational, would rather have someone who was more experienced with the Egyptian dialect accompanying him just in case he wasn’t understood.

As if sensing his impatience, Isis turned once toward the clock and back to her associates.

“Gentlemen, perhaps we can continue this conversation later. It’s already late, and I’m sure you are all eager for refreshments that, unfortunately, the museum cannot provide.” Her slender hands came together over the surface of the mahogany desk, marking no possibility for refusing her.

Both Yoshimori, Ryou and his father, weren’t of mind to decline the open invitation to help themselves for a late evening meal.

“I could go for some food about now,” commented Yoshimori, nodding. He and Ryou hadn’t eaten since their overlay in Cairo and Yoshimori made sure to voice it. “I haven’t had anything except breakfast at the airport yesterday morning.

Mr. Bakura nodded, conceding without much resistance, and shrugged.

“I’ve got no concerns—ate quite a big lunch earlier—” he elaborated. “Ryou?”

Having been focused on the light on the ceiling, Ryou, startled, adjusted his posture in his seat.

“Oh, yes. I could go for some food,” he said, fixing his hair, distracting from the flush on his face.

The group of men followed Isis as she stood up and went to the door. Ryou caught sight of the way she looked at him from the corner of her eye when she passed him, leaving him confused, not knowing what to make of the gesture.

At the door, Ryou’s father waited on Isis.

“Will you be accompanying us this evening, Ms. Ishtar?”

Isis flashed him a courteous smile, smoothing the wrinkled fabric on the front of her white dress.

“I’m afraid I will have to turn down your invitation tonight, Mr. Bakura. I have someone else to meet with before the night is over—and there is some paperwork to be filled in order to send the selected artifacts from here, overseas. It will take some time, but I think we can finish speaking about the date of the arrangement some other time, yes?”

Mr. Bakura nodded fervently in understanding. 

“Of course. I will leave the more complicated procedures to you and Yoshimori, then,” he chuckled.

As his father went to the door with Professor Yoshimori, Ryou took the opportunity to approach Isis. She had been distant as the evening had progressed— unsurprising, though. The impassive face she used as she noticed Ryou's encroachment was deterring, jarring almost, because he hadn't had an idea of whether he'd done anything to make her dislike him.

Apprehensive, he glanced nervously toward the door where Yoshimori and his father stood as they called a taxi.

"I'd like to thank you for earlier," Ryou began, observing for any changes in her demeanor. "For— for not saying anything about what really happened in Battle City."

He hadn't spoken her in more than a year and he worried over whether his address was perhaps too forward, especially since she was an older woman.

"Your gratitude is unnecessary, though duly noted," she said, curtly.

The distant reply did nothing to give him confidence.

He blew out a disappointing, "Oh."

She turned on her heel and the blatant rejection of her gesture was almost physical.

Ryou almost didn’t call out to her, but she was the only immediate person who could inform him about Malik. Ryou had had some courteous exchanges with him during the weeks leading up to his trip, though he hadn’t mentioned his intention to meet up with him for fear of reprisal.

Malik had never suggested being open about sharing stories about Bakura, let alone having been _ friends _with him to do it in the manner Ryou wanted, but Malik was the one person who could help Ryou in certain aspects of the purpose of his trip. He was the one person Ryou could count on in understanding, at least a little, the connection he and Bakura had with each other.

"Wait—I wanted to ask about—your brother."

Ryou braced himself for another rebuff, and sure enough it was visible, though not acted upon immediately.

Isis’s shoulders stiffened. Her attention was directed at him again, and Ryou saw the manner in which her eyes narrowed as the subject changed.

"What about him?" she asked, tersely.

Her demeanor had changed in the split second she took to turn around. Ryou still wasn't quite sure what had made such a contrasting shift in attitude.

He blinked, taken aback by the unexpected stark change, and Isis was her business-like self again.

"I don't—I was wondering whether he was here or not—" He stumbled over words, a weakness in determination easy to exploit.

"He isn't," she informed him, stoic. "He is in Cairo and won't be back for another few weeks. I take it you won't be here by then?"

She didn't give him a chance to reply not could Ryou think of doing so under her barrage of well-concealed unwelcome attitude.

"It seems your father and Mr. Yoshimori are preparing for their taxi. Perhaps it's time for you to go and meet with them for the time being."

She inclined her head, ready to leave, and when she finally did recede to her office, Ryou was left at the entrance, stunned, and at a loss for words.

* * *

It was evening, and consequently, still on time, when Malik arrived at the museum to meet his sister. She had asked for his aid in some matters of international exchange of artifacts, citing that it was his duty as head of the family to understand the workings of what she deemed an acceptable career choice for them, who had been tomb keepers. Malik, thinking it was an extension of their family curse to continue line of work dealing with dead and ungrateful pharaohs, indulged her ideas, while simultaneously doing all he could to shift the weight onto Rishid, instead, for becoming the true heir of the family.

While he mulled over what else he could to sabotage the day’s responsibilities, he happened to lift his head, and catch sight of Ryou’s father, standing at the entrance to the museum. The man wasn’t a rare sight in the least, having had many exchanges with him already where museum procedures were involved, Mr. Bakura having a museum of his own. Either way, Malik stopped upon seeing him, and pocketed his keys.

It was October, and as far as he knew, Ryou’s semester hadn’t any holidays.

Not that Ryou’s first inclination for a long vacation was darting to Egypt to see him.

He snorted at his own fantasies, and continued the path along the outer edge of the parking lot. If the elder Bakura was chatting on the curb, Isis probably had finished whatever obligations were due to them and was undoubtedly waiting in her office, annoyed was putting it mildly, for Malik’s arrival.

His arm extended to take hold of a door that was already opening.

His heart, he would never admit to anybody, almost leapt out of his chest when he saw the younger Bakura’s image reflected on the inner part of the glass.

Malik made sure to blink a couple of times, standing back starstruck, as the door opened fully to see his initial assertion was correct.

“Sorry,” were the first words that tumbled out of Ryou’s mouth, almost on instinct. Then, his eyes widened. “You—!” Ryou did the same as Malik, taken aback at his appearance, mouth open and slack, stopping mid-stride to absorb the person before him. His eyelids fluttered rapidly. He shook his head, frowning rather heatedly at the glass doors.

Malik raised a brow, worried at what seemed an accusatory reception.

“They told me you weren’t here…” Ryou said after the shock had worn off and the quiet, only filled with Professor Yoshimori and his father’s repetitive chatter, had grown awkward.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Malik responds rather obliquely.

Ryou’s lips tug at the corners.

“It’s nice to see you again anyway.” He avoided looking at Malik directly, instead, glancing over his shoulder. When he returned his gaze to Malik, the other was staring and his blood pressure had risen significantly.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” he said, managing to avoid his statement sounding like a question. And feeling rather bold, seizing the opportunity he had been thinking about only moments earlier, “Are you doing anything tonight?”

It was perfectly normal to ask that immediately of someone who he hadn’t seen in person for over a year.

“Oh,” Ryou said in the same tone he adopted when piqued by an interesting proposal. “I’m not actually. Well, my father and Professor Yoshimori were heading back to the hotel we’re staying in—the Nefertiri—it’s not far from here—to eat, but I...” he trailed off, taking a chance glance at Malik before casting his eyes down.

Malik, knowing many of the roads that led up to the museum, had seen it in passing several times.

Somewhere, he thought, the gods were ready to shift his fate to something a bit more favorable when Ryou said, without prompt—

“Would you like to come? I feel like we should catch up.”

The smile he flashed was the breaking point of the night.

It was rather unfortunate that the face before him had transformed into his sister’s furious one when he accepted Ryou’s invitation and left to tell the news of his defection to Isis.

“It’s your responsibility to continue your line of duty.”

For some reason, when angry, his sister liked to believe he was still a little boy.

Malik deposited his share of files which had been entrusted to him to deliver. He indicated to them with a tap of his fingers on the table.

“Here’s what you asked for. Rishid has the rest but that won’t be filled until about tomorrow morning.” He turned on his heel, ignoring the irate stare from his Isis.

“Malik.” She followed him to the door of her office. “_Malik _!” Her shout had turned into a hissed whisper, mindful of the quiet setting of the museum and its large echoey walls.

“Malik, if the reason you seek that boy is because—” she blinked when Malik directed his full gaze at her. She furrowed her brows, “Is because you want him to be the same thing he was before—I can tell you he isn’t. He’s not the same and there’s no point in trying to go back.”

He pressed his mouth together holding back a more offensive set of words.

“You may not like the life you’re living now, but I’m happy for you. Your brother is happy for you. Your therapist says you’ve made excellent progress—stop looking for a way to gp back to your old life.”

Isis had made that same argument before, during other occasions when Malik sought to distance himself, if just a little bit, from what Isis wanted for him. Nobody ever spoke about whether _Malik_ was happy with his situation in life.

“I know he’s not the same,” he told her, extracting the keys from his pocket to demonstrate he was serious. Isis followed his hand’s movements with her eyes, threatening with a silent, raging glare.

Malik was almost disappointed that her impression of him was as suspicious as the day he’d stepped off the KaibaCorp blimp. He wondered how long it would take for Isis to trust him completely on his own, without the watchful escort of their older brother.

Probably never, if her idea of a career was to remain standing right beside to her.

He tugged at the riding gloves on his hands. Ryou had already left to the hotel where he promised to wait for Malik’s arrival and they could talk about the time spent apart and catch up.

Ryou wasn’t the same.

Everyone’s assumptions of Malik, on the other hand, were.

He ignored the insistence from Isis to return at once, calling back instead over his shoulder to her. The museum was deserted, and his voice bounced off the hollow walls decorated with only things of the past.

“I’m not either, _ sister_.”

* * *

Ryou walked with a gait unfamiliar to Malik. His strides were short and brisk as opposed to long and wide. How he held his head, too, was different, refreshing in its high attentive posture, not a brooding one held low and fraught with suspicion. None of what he observed was necessarily bad. Rather, Malik felt relief that the _ person _ who had once inhabited Ryou hadn’t left an impact that could change who he was at his core: selfless.

The long conversations on certain nights that Malik could recall with a vividness were proof to him of that selflessness. Ryou would speak of his friends, and their lives, simply because he’d thought of them. When he didn’t speak about them, he preferred to listen to what Malik had to say, though Malik didn’t talk much about anything either, living what he thought was an embarrassingly unexciting life. Sometimes his side of the conversation shifted, narrating what Isis was doing in her work and how Rishid had taken to buying lambs whose cut meat he donated to the poor.

Malik had been surprised, when a virtual letter from Ryou arrived in his inbox mentioning Eid al-Adha. It was detailed and evidently, the other had done intense research to learn about the practice, asking _post scriptum_ questions he had doubts on. Malik had to tell him as gently as possible, days later for he almost couldn’t bring himself to correct him, that only Rishid had converted and that he himself didn’t observe the holiday except in accompanying his brother.

One night, Ryou had been nervous at the beginning of their conversation. Malik at the time, hadn’t felt he had the skill to press him over worries, but he also thought Ryou’s awkwardness had been due in part because he’d made his mistake in the previous letter about Eid al-Adha.

He managed to try and make a joke out of Ryou’s quietness of that night, asking—

“Did you break one of your dolls? Is that why you’re so quiet?”

Ryou had frowned but laughed, dismissing the idea of ever breaking one of his precious handmade miniatures.

The query had made its point though, and with a bit more rousing, Ryou dropped the excuses that nothing was wrong. He’d grown serious, and a shadow had come over his face.

“You knew him, right?” he began, tentative, as though the subject was forbidden and he was breaking some sacrament bringing it up to Malik. It was easy to discern who the 'him' was.

Malik expected the question would come up eventually. He was the only remaining outsider who truly knew Bakura and having knowledge as to what kind of relationship the parasite had had with its host, he wasn’t at all surprised at Ryou wanting to make some kind of connection with the lost spirit through him.

He tried to play it off nodding as though unbothered.

“Yeah, sure.”

A long, long, pause.

“Did he ever say anything—,” Ryou said, lowering his gaze, “ —anything about me, to you?”

Malik rocked himself in his chair.

In truth, Bakura had kept Ryou from their conversations except when it came to making a point in calling him _ his _host. Ryou was always a possession to Bakura, and he made sure to establish the fact upon he and Malik’s first meeting.

His first impression was that he was an arrogant piece of shit who wanted too much for a dead man. Malik didn’t see the point of his existence back then, especially when it kept Malik from controlling Ryou as he had done with Anzu and Jonouchi.

It was Bakura who was the master puppeteer with Ryou, almost as though he couldn’t let anyone else control him in the same intimate way he did.

At least, that’s how Malik saw it.

Nobody but Bakura was supposed to hurt him— and the damage he inflicted on Ryou’s physical body, Bakura was always at the forefront of it, taking the brunt of those self-inflicted injuries.

But Malik couldn’t tell Ryou the whole truth about Bakura, about his well-calculated sadism to get what he wanted.

The horrible things they did together—the lengths they knew the other could go to uphold a side of a bargain neither truly meant.

The lengths Malik would go to rid himself of Bakura, even if it meant putting Ryou’s health at risk.

He had been so desperate back then— to destroy the spirit inhabiting him— that he was ready to ruin Ryou if it meant the other’s destruction, too.

Ruin him in a way which he envied Bakura for.

And when Ryou had spoken to him during his lodging in Egypt at the time of the Ceremonial Duel, _ without _ the distant suspicions the others in his party regarded him with, Malik had seen Ryou as something _ other _ than Bakura’s empty vessel.

He became friends with Ryou who revealed the goodness of his heart unto _ him_, whose own _sister _ still didn’t fully trust him alone after so long.

It was probably due in fact that Ryou had little memory of what had happened in Battle City years ago that he regarded Malik warmly. Ryou was the only one who didn’t know the full story. He was the only one who hadn’t seen _ him— _the darkness in his heart at its worst.

That was why Malik couldn’t reveal the terrible acts he and Bakura committed together, without also revealing what kind of person he himself had been.

If Ryou ever knew how similar he and Bakura were at one point, how much worse Malik had been, he didn’t think he could ever look him in the eye. Ryou probably overlooked what Bakura did, but Malik couldn't guarantee that same generosity directed at himself.

He kept his secrets secret.

Kept those secrets Bakura’s non-existence had burdened him to hide in the dark recesses of his past.

“Not really,” he said.

Ryou never did bring up Bakura after that.

So when Ryou told him, over the homely comfort of street food where Malik thought he could finally confess the warmth of budding feelings that could no longer be classified as just friendship, that the reason he had come to Egypt had nothing to do with him, that warmth turned into ice.

He blinked once, twice, stunned into silence.

“Are you all right?” Ryou asked him. “You’re looked a little pale for a second.” He furrowed his brows and brought a hand up, waving it in front of him a few times.

Of course it would still be about Bakura.

It was always him.

Malik took a sip of his drink, setting it down rather roughly after, on the bench.

“Took a bite of something nasty,” he said.

Ryou frowned, looking down at his own paper plate of food suspiciously.

The sun had gone down already, leaving their non-date to progress under a romantic starlit indigo sky.

After the brief pause to inspect his food—

“Would you take me tomorrow?” Ryou asked. “I’d prefer to have some company on my way there.” His fingers twitched on his disposable spoon.

When Malik didn’t answer right away, he amended—

“You don’t have to, of course.”

_ Of course. _

“I just— I don’t know. I think I’d feel better if you went with me.” He picked at his meat and cheese.

Malik didn’t know exactly what compelled him to say _ yes _.

Part of him probably thought if he went with him, Ryou would run into his arms right after, Bakura a forgotten after-thought that left _ both _their lives.

Perhaps it was that Ryou simply made him stupid, if he wasn’t already, for thinking such a thing could be so easy.

Ryou needed time to finally let go of Bakura, who had apparently made an impression on him that would last a lifetime.

Impression was hardly the word, Malik thought.

Ryou had been, and still was in love with him.

Looking back to the first raising of Bakura as the topic, brief as it had been, Malik should have seen it in Ryou’s disappointment when he’d told him that Bakura never spoke of him. It was apparent then, with how earnest he’d sounded in confessing how his existence had become the wandering sort when Bakura was no longer around. Malik heard the affection between his words, an affection not meant for him but still discernible, when he talked about wanting to find memories of Bakura in anything he could.

In passing, he wondered how long exactly Bakura and Ryou had been together to make that sort of lasting connection. Not only in the parasite-host manner, but what the hell kind of relationship could be had between the two of them with one of them being a disembodied abomination of a festered revenge?

Ryou had obviously been infatuated with Bakura, given how he still chased after anything he could of him.

He questioned Bakura beyond the grave—

Did _ you _ love him, or did you only make him believe that _ he _ loved _ you _?

Malik swallowed the bitterness in his mouth with another sip of drink.

Bakura had been a sadistic bastard, respect for the dead be damned, and he didn’t think it was possible for someone like him to ever have tender feelings for another human being. He thought that what Ryou was going through was a regrettable aftereffect of a manipulative malignant spirit who had only ever truly thought of himself and that everything else was just his for the taking.

It was worse knowing very well those characteristics could also have applied to him.

Malik still hated Bakura, though he could understand his inability to reach Ryou was some sort of curse—or karma—to punish the misdeeds he’d committed in his life, both before and with Bakura.

He could think of one way to repent for them, and it must have been an ironic twist of fate to need his double-dead enemy for it.

Finished with his portion of food and drink, he tossed them nearby into a bin. He dusted his hands and reseated himself on the bench, staring at the ground beneath.

If he was to somehow make up for almost killing Ryou, then he could find it in himself to take him to the one place where he could finally rid himself _ and _Ryou, of Bakura.

It was mutually beneficial, though Ryou didn’t need to know it.

“Yeah, I can take you.” The words were echoes in his ears.

Ryou smiled, picking at what should have been cold food by then. He set his paper container down on his lap and leaned into Malik so he could hear him over the cacophony of the rapidly livening night.

“Thank you.”

Malik felt a tickle of air that could have been mistaken for the wind, on his cheek.

* * *

It was late in the morning when Ryou made his way to the Ishtar home, half an hour away from the hotel. He had had brief breakfast, and an exchange with Yoshimori and his father, and left early, anxious and excited for the prospect of finally visiting the shrine.

The day was not without its first setback however. Ryou had paid the taxi driver away, and Malik, looking bothered at having wakened _ early _ suggested calling a second one for the long, tiresome ride to the other side of the Nile.

“A car?” Ryou echoed. “You have a motorcycle, don’t you? I’ve always wanted to ride one,” he informed, beaming at the idea. His excitement petered out when he saw the expression on Malik’s face.

The morning was turning out to be hot, and no amount of early rising would be enough to avoid the threat of an afternoon sun. Given the season, he should have been grateful for the somewhat agreeable temperature, as during any of the summer months, standing outside at that time would have been unbearable.

The other blinked, looked around, fidgeting with the bracelet on his wrist, as though wanting to either take it off or make it tighter. He spotted his brother, and upon seeing the sly, unsuccessfully hidden smile, Malik lowered his eyebrows into a frown, quickly wiping the smirk off Rishid’s face.

“I sent the sidecar for repairs,” he said, unable to keep his face serious with the explanation no one asked for.

“What repairs?” Malik said, eyes narrowing and voice lowering into a hiss.

Ryou looked between the pair, thinking he might have unknowingly said something wrong.

“One of the tires looked low,” Rishid responded easily. And before Malik could protest again, he turned on his heel, calling over his shoulder, “He’s right. There’s no need for a taxi. I’ll get the second helmet for him.”

When Malik only glared after him, Ryou fidgeted closer, apprehensive. Not hearing him approach, Malik turned turned rather abruptly, shoving past him by accident.

He muttered what must have been an apology, unable to meet Ryou’s eyes, and tossed him the black helmet which had been resting on the back seat. Ryou, whose reflexes were shoddy, barely managed to catch it. The thing was heavier than it looked, but sturdy enough not to doubt its function.

“You can get on,” Malik told him, already sitting on the bike himself, busy pulling a pair of riding gloves on.

Ryou looked over his shoulder; Rishid hadn’t yet returned with the spare helmet. He didn’t see another one nearby, and Malik didn’t seem worried enough about one for himself.

“Shouldn’t we wait for him? Your brother— ?”

“He’s not coming back,” Malik said easily, kicking the stand and starting the bike.

The noise it made was loud up close, enough to ring Ryou’s ear, making them tickle from the inside.

“Besides,” Malik spoke, revving again to test the engine. “I don’t want to see his smug look when he does.”

Ryou gave him a puzzled smile. Taking one last glance at the glass door, and seeing no sign of Rishid's approach, he fit the helmet over his head, the clips being straightforward with their purpose underneath his chin. He swung a leg over the seat to sit behind Malik, taking a curious peer over Malik’s shoulders to see how what the front was like.

He felt the other tense and immediately let his hands drop from where they rested on Malik’s shoulders. Given how they hadn’t exactly known each other except from behind a screen and through texts, Ryou shouldn’t have been surprised by the rigidity in Malik’s posture with their proximity.

“Sorry—should I put my hands somewhere else?” He looked around himself, searching for an alternative to hang on to, but he didn’t trust himself to maintain a good hold of the backseat for the entire duration of the trip all the way across the Nile to the Valley of the Kings.

“It’s fine,” Malik said after a while. The tension in his posture eased and he didn’t tense again when Ryou grabbed the hem his shirt instead.

Over the noise of the motorcycle, they both heard Rishid’s voice call Malik from the inside.

Before Ryou could turn to see whether he was to bring Malik the extra helmet for their trip, Malik hissed something indistinct in what was presumably a colloquial phrase in Arabic Ryou wasn’t familiar with, then distinctly, over the curve of his shoulder—

“Hold on.”

He hadn’t had time to process the order when the motorcycle revved once more, the door of the house opened with a cheerful chime, and the bulk of Rishid stepped out.

Ryou’s hands wound up around Malik’s center, digging his fingers into hardness of muscle underneath the thin fabric of his loose shirt. The area contracted and expanded, and when the danger of falling off was over, after the initial rush of momentum, he loosened his death grip.

Even over the noise of excitement and chaos, he caught Malik’s words:

“Don’t look back. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

His voice was level, but Ryou caught the glum tone of defeat coming from him.

Against Malik’s wishes, Ryou’s curiosity got the better of him.

He did look back.

Managing his hold on Malik, he angled his body just enough that he managed to see Rishid, standing at the door of a rapidly shrinking house. He held a lump of what should have been the second helmed clutched at his side, but also—

His broad grin, visible still, even with the fast widening gap of distance between them.

* * *

Disentangling his arms from Malik’s waist, Ryou detached himself from him, eyes and mind set on the visible ruins of what he knew to be Kul Elna. He’d been there before just once, for the Ceremonial Duel. Bakura had said little about the place, and all Ryou understood from him, when he spoke of his past, was that the excavated site had been his ultimate goal in reaching. He never did, though, and so Ryou was there that day, for him.

In front of him, Malik slid off the bike, smoothing back wind-ruffled hair with long fingers. He looked over to Ryou, and Malik had any qualms about visiting a deserted pile of rocks, he said nothing.

Their connection, the thrill of escape and riding over the stretch of desert roads thinned into a fine silence, their mutual existence at that time and place, the only thing holding them together.

Underfoot, Ryou’s shoes sunk into hot sand, hot even with rubber and sole between his foot and the ground, though that might have been the conducting material exacerbating the sensation of heat. He unfastened the tie around his chin, removing his own helmet, handing it to Malik, who took it without word to hang it on the handlebars. Unfortunately for Ryou, his hair wasn’t as cooperative with him as Malik’s hair had been with him, and no matter how much he tugged fingers through it, he couldn’t rid himself of the clumps borne from having worn the helmet.

Malik threw his leg forward, kicking the stand at the side.

At the entrance to the ruins, Ryou looked back seeing Malik there, leaning on his bike, the chrome metal sending daggers of sunlight in his direction. He was staring off into the horizon of waving lines of heat and blue mirages undulating between dunes of ancient sand and modern road. Visibly unbothered by the sun, Ryou should have asked him to accompany him, if only to keep him from getting heat stroke. There was perfectly adequate shade under the shelter of crumbling stone. He thought it was due in part because Malik wanted to give him some privacy and thus, kept his distance until Ryou eased whatever tormented him enough to make him visit old piles of stacked stone.

Malik turned, catching Ryou gazing in his direction. The profile of a smooth straight nose and curved lips transformed into a hawk’s gaze quite suddenly, and much like his sister’s own, when he angled his face to look straight at Ryou, Ryou had the strange urge to look away, lest they, both Isis and Malik, saw through him.

Ryou didn’t think Malik understood his desire— or understood that desire was really a necessity to Ryou—to return to the forgotten underground temple. Once, it had haunted the life of a man, driving him, in time, to madness and obsession. Ryou, fearing the same could happen to him, that he could grow mad in the way Bakura did, chasing things that had long passed, sought the temple’s cursed walls for closure.

As he left Malik underneath clouds, looking mostly unbothered by the soft hold of the morning sunrise, he caught a glimpse of the shine bouncing off the chrome and metal, off the gold of the bracelets around his neck and wrists. Strangely, he saw the dull, in comparison, of numbered plates behind the seat. 

He lifted an arm in a passing wave, fingers suspended in the air, as if he were holding the image of Malik and his motorcycle over the horizon.

Malik gave him a queer look, unfolding his arm awkwardly from underneath the crook of his elbow; his wrist twitched with the same suspended gesture.

The steps of the descending staircase weren’t long nor crumbled, despite their age. They held him upright with their firm foundations as Ryou’s legs began to tremble with each step he took, going deeper into the depths—

Depths that held an unknown, reminding him of the abandonment from someone he’d come to cherish, perhaps as close to love as he’d ever felt in his life.

Yugi was familiar with the same sentiment— the feeling that teetered between dependence and friendship, love and adoration of someone they could never truly have.

The bottom of the steps glowed with an eerie row of dim lights, revealing that the temple wasn’t as forgotten as initially concluded.

Although, if he thought about it, Malik probably would have said something about taking precautions and flashlights. Perhaps that was another reason to leave Ryou to venture in privacy: he knew the underground temple wasn’t in a state of ruin deeming it unsafe for him.

At the base of the row of lights hanging against a pillar of stone, Ryou spotted the familiar blue logo that littered the city of Domino— the KaibaCorp logo. Even months after his initial excavation, Seto Kaiba, apparently, still hadn’t extracted his sources from there. Either that, or whoever had been working for him didn’t seem to uphold the same standards for thoroughness he was notorious for. Either way, Ryou found a bit of amusement at the notion that KaibaCorp’s CEO reached all parts of the world, even below earth.

His feet carried him slowly, deeper into the spacious room, and with each stride forward, he measured the width of the temple, absorbed the height of the darkened ceilings where the light didn’t quite reach.

The temple had crumbled once, the center of it broken into the ground and the Mortuary Tablet opening a chasm of decay where the great stone of mystery had resided, and where the doors to the afterlife had opened and welcomed Atem after millennia.

Ryou thought he’d never again step foot on the subterranean depths of the ancient remains. He thought, like everything else, the no longer needed place would succumb to the waves of time that covered nearly everything around them for miles, in oceans of sand.

Kaiba, and his incessant need to control everything, up to and it seemed, including, the afterlife, had reconstructed the architecture beneath the surface to something more suitable while he and his sources excavated the shattered pieces of the Millennium Puzzle. Ryou stared down the same chasm that had left him with a void of his own after the taking of the Millennium Ring and its subsequent loss.

Looking at the black emptiness, Ryou once again found the Ring eluding his grasp: during the Ceremonial Duel, its fall, and then with the disappearance after Atem’s return to the world of the living, signifying the end— the final chapter—of his long struggle to attain his name and peace.

There was nothing more left for Ryou to hang on to.

Not the glimmer of faint hope that Bakura would make a miraculous comeback through the Millennium Items.

Nor the wish that he would wake up one day and Bakura would still be him and that the horrible chain of events that ended with his demise never at all happened.

What Ryou held onto instead were the absences Bakura had left behind, much like the hole in the ground that threatened to swallow Ryou up with the smallest misstep.

Ryou saw the spaces he had once inhabited, items scattered through his apartment, ones Ryou would find and would keep finding as long as he lived there—

The black duster nobody wore— it was too hot, Ryou told himself when the sun was bright and the black stood out between the gap of his closet.

The tacky leather boots with a point too long— though they did fit perfectly and of course they did. Why ever wouldn’t they? Sometimes he’d forget, all too often, that Bakura was him. That he wasn’t someone Ryou could see passing on the street with a face different than his own.

On rare occasions, he did reveal himself to Ryou. On those far too rare occurrences, ones that were deliberate acts and not done on a whim, he made sure to prove to Ryou that Bakura, and only Bakura, in whatever state, could ignite those long buried, safeguarded emotions in Ryou, during those electric moments of close intimacy, shared through whispers and dreams and wishes and imaginary touch.

The abyss greeted Ryou with a pitch-black salute.

A jump into it, he thought, could be an endless suspension in time.

Knowing Kaiba had found the puzzle, however, meant there was an end after an eventual depth.

Ryou turned away from the gouged remains of the Millennium Stone, taking care not to step on the possibly weakened points in the foundations that could lead to his demise.

The sounds of his footsteps were absorbed into the stone as he stepped into the tiny lights emitted by the bulbs, making no noise whatsoever. He wondered— if he screamed, would the sound carry to the surface?

To simply be within the ancient shrine filled him with a sense of the obsolete— of things that had been and could never be, but the echoes of those things that had once existed, still roamed the spaces unseen, like pestering phantoms too great to let themselves be forgotten.

With thoughts of ghosts suspended in his mind, the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck rose.

Ryou thought he felt a breeze coming from somewhere.

Something crackled in one of the unlit corners.

Quite abruptly, Ryou had a strange thought he wasn’t quite alone anymore in the underground.

He blinked in the direction of the giant hole, a sort of quaint thrumming developing along the sensitive skin of his exposed limbs.

The abandoned light bulbs, suspended on the dirty walls, flickered, the buzzing stretching in the all too quiet of the room.

Ryou turned himself in multiple directions. He took a step, and then another, trying to find what it was that made everything, all of a sudden, odd.

The sound could have been a mouse dashing into a crevice he couldn’t see. Even simpler, an echo of the same crackling of the bulbs his ears had been subject to listening already.

It could have been that— or it could have been anything else. Something which he had been waiting for— hoped would come true during his visit— thought about at every moment between Bakura’s disappearance and his journey to Egypt.

His blood bubbled with every beat of his heart.

The room suffocated him with damp, hot, pressure.

He opened his mouth, dry lips sticking together. His tongue danced behind teeth, heavy with all the possibilities of words he could muster in that instance.

Ryou settled for only one:

“—Bakura?”

It was impossible; Ryou knew it at his very core.

Bakura was gone—and had been gone for too long to believe he would appear _ one day. _

It was that same impossibility that made him think it was possible. After all, Bakura had returned to him from worse.

Ryou had blatantly lied to Malik, confessing that he sought the underground ruins for closure, when in reality, his goal was to see if that inkling of hope he kindled finally attested to something. 

Malik probably knew that.

Ryou couldn’t say he didn’t entirely feel not guilty over involving him, someway, in his pursuit for any trace of Bakura.

Malik had nothing to do with both him or Ryou, and when Ryou did bring up Bakura, it was almost as though he changed—he became careful with words, trepidation evident in the unfilled silence between Ryou’s tentative and curious questions.

Ryou couldn’t blame him, either, for it was during he and Bakura’s brief encounter that Malik had lived the darkest part of his life.

The silence that stretched was just like those in he and Malik’s conversations.

Ryou endured the lump in his throat from not receiving answers.

The call for Bakura was responded with the gloom of silence— 

Silence of none to be said—

And of none left to say it.

He wasn’t sure if it was disappointment, sadness, or anger, or all of it and everything in between.

Bakura had left him with nothing but that ringing silence and a yearning for answers—of wanting to know what happened to him. Why.

He opened his mouth again—if he called out louder…

But his lips clasped together, folding into themselves to hold back from saying any more.

Though emotions lingered inside him in some form of torment or another, there was one thing he was sure he’d found in the tempest of his spinning thoughts—

Acceptance.

Bakura was gone.

He was gone, he wasn’t returning, he wasn’t waiting for Ryou to find him, nor was he hiding, waiting until _ one day_, they were right for one another to meet.

He wasn’t there, or anywhere.

And it was time for Ryou to move on.

He couldn’t wait for that elusive _ one day_.

Not forever.

Not without giving up his entire life.

Bakura was a selfish person.

He wouldn’t ever have Ryou to anyone other than himself— but even he, Ryou believed, wouldn’t allow for him to live a life of solitude and _ waiting, _wanting.

Ryou stepped aside to one of the larger pillars, circling the expanse of the underground shrine that had become both the last place to contain hope and simultaneously destroy it.

It was time to say good-bye.

Bakura could never be forgotten, and he could never try, but some things were better if they remained buried.

He took one last chance glance at the caved-in stone tablet.

It had buried the Millennium Items.

It could bury the memory of a man who had been too-long dead.

Taking one step to the edge of it, the same peculiar notion about being watched sprung up. Ryou glanced uneasily, that time, at the darkness concealing the depths of the deep chasm. He almost felt a breeze coming up from it, like damp breath of a monster with its maw wide open for a satisfying meal.

He shifted uncomfortably at the idea that he could be eaten by forces unseen—

And it was then, during the fleeting thought of open-mouthed chimeras that reality snapped in two.

His foot, suspended in the same position, froze, and it was as if though sounds inside the walls vibrated in a terrible unison. The underground shook, but nothing moved.

His shoe did hit the ground, his eyes saw it—but his body, hanging in space, felt as though it kept falling. Something other than himself fell forward, but at the same time, it was him, too.

The abyss came nearer, bigger, or was it Ryou going forward?

A jump was easy.

A slip was as well.

What happened in one single breath was impossible.

It was the same impossibility, he would think back on later, that proved anything could be possible.

After all, Bakura had returned to him from worse.

It was then, logical, that the reverse could happen, too—or as close to the reverse as Ryou was willing to accept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- the reason Ryou is twenty and not nineteen is that my friend and I thought he was probably a year behind from switching schools&bakura interrupting his school life. iirc i think he only switched once, and bakura probably didn't skip enough to affect ryou's pass into another grade, but...in this fic... yes.  
\- this fic is tagged 'slow burn' but it probably won't be as slow burn as my other fic  
\- in dsod Kaiba is able to summon Obelisk during his and Diva's duel in the underground shrine. (hint: this is a hint. detailed explanation as the story progresses but I thought this was necessary early on)


	2. Pale Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note. When Ryou speaks, it will be in italics since Japanese is the foreign language at this point&time. If dialogue is between quotation marks and all italicized, that’s a foreign language.

Ryou’s father had a look about him that made his wrinkles seem deeper and his beard whiter as the police officer closed the door, and the front light of the Ishtar home cast on his aged face was replaced with shadow, leaving him with a life just a little emptier than it had been before. The sunken look of his eyes gave him a sallow pale demeanor and Malik was left staring at an empty version of the otherwise serious man he’d only come to know because of his sister’s work.

Beside him, Rishid shifted moving forward and set a gentle wide hand on Mr. Bakura’s shoulder. Mr. Yoshimori did the same next to the older man, whispering things unheard, but possibly something that was meant to sound reassuring during the trying time.

Malik understood the feeling—if only by its similar opposite.

His own father had died and left him young. Despite the years, his heart still held on to the ache of guilt cloaked under compressing layers of time.

From what he’d gathered of his conversations with Ryou, Malik learned Ryou hadn’t been close to his father either. In recent years, though, they had begun a tentative re-acquaintance with each other and had to slowly discover once more, after years, what it meant to be a father and son.

Malik, then, knew very well the look on Mr. Bakura’s face—one which reflected Ryou's father had lost something before he ever had a chance to regain the whole of it. It resonated with Malik's own buried guilt and the one that had just begun to sprout insisting, like a spider lily, feeding, over the first one.

Everyone had grown quiet after the officers’ departure. Mr. Yoshimori stood at his friend’s side, whiskers drawn down obscuring his mouth. Rishid had returned to Malik’s side, face pouched with solemnity. Malik must have looked much the same.

Isis was the only one impassive during it all—since the evening before, when Malik had arrived, just after the sun had set, parched and scathed, dusted from head to toe, panicked and calling for his brother with a voice on the brink of shattering.

He didn’t recall at all his exact words, only that Rishid had listened, and somehow deciphered his broken sentences enough to call the police. Then the detectives arrived with morning; Mr. Bakura and Mr. Yoshimori soon had, too. The day too quickly passed, strained. The sun had set once again.

At one end of the room, Isis stood still, like the stone artifacts in her museum, with eyes to match, watching the closed door. She hadn’t looked at Malik since the previous night.

He wanted to say something to Mr. Bakura, but the ensuing silence had grown aggressive with its oppressive atmosphere. His jaw tightened and his mouth swallowed the words he should have said.

Ryou’s father was the one, instead, who dared disturb the quiet.

“Perhaps I was too hard on him lately,” he said. His hand held his wallet, a picture of younger Ryou looking up at him through a plastic slot, innocent, as the snapshot had captured him during his middle school year.

Yoshimori inhaled sharply and sighed, turning away from the man, the picture, and patted Mr. Bakura’s shoulder heavily with a distracted arm.

Malik looked down at a man whose life had been sucked out of him. The older man neither blinked nor did he speak again, staring vacantly through crescent glasses at the picture of his only son.

His own fist had clenched at his side while he pride within him waned, overcome with the nagging insistence that somehow, deep down, everything which had happened was his fault. He didn’t know exactly how—maybe he hadn’t paid enough attention. Maybe because he’d let Ryou go down into the rubble alone. Maybe because he thought a little too much about himself and what would come after in allowing Ryou to do so.

Maybe because Malik just had _ plain shit luck _ that made everyone and everything around fall to pieces.

The fact of the matter was Malik had been there at the temple—and then Ryou hadn’t.

Even the detectives thought it suspicious. He discerned it from the way they looked at him when he gave his account of the details, listening, clicking their pens but never writing anything, asking Malik over and over to repeat what he said. He had felt exposed and the inclination to escape their judgmental gazes left him answering vacantly, in the same manner Mr. Bakura had adopted after they had told him the news.

The older man lifted his face and took a hold of his friend’s arm.

“Perhaps I tried too hard to be a father.”

Next to him, Malik heard Rishid exhale a sharp sigh.

Mr. Yoshimori glanced at the two and redirected his gaze at the older man. He leaned down and spoke softly near his ear.

“You weren’t too hard on him, Bakura.” His hand patted the other’s shoulder gently. “The police have been searching all morning. He probably just—just took a bad fall down one of those damned holes. We have that happen all the time at our excavation sites, right? And always, we find them down there waiting for rescue. You’ll see. We’ll find Ryou. Good as new.” Yoshimori stroked his long time friend’s back and Mr. Bakura’s shoulders slumped with the ringing words.

Malik pressed his mouth into a thin line holding back from telling Mr. Yoshimori what he himself had already seen—he had already looked down various caved places of the shrine. Ryou wasn't down any of those _ damned holes, _not unless he reappeared overnight. Malik himself had yelled down them until his throat was sore. He'd looked up and down every inch of the place. There couldn't have been anything he missed. Ryou just hadn't been there.

He shifted his eyes away from the professor to Ryou's father.

Even though Mr. Bakura made no sound, it was discernible from the way his shoulders shook how the emotion had finally begun to spill out from within him. No stranger to loss, the elder Bakura was experiencing the same pain all over again, and Malik couldn’t be sure, with how little he knew of him personally, if he was strong enough to live through it.

Malik finally turned his head away.

“Let’s take you back to the hotel. You need some rest,” Yoshimori whispered to him, close, ressuring, with an arm embracing the trembling form of his friend. He looked over their joint form to give a solemn look of apology and farewell to them all. Isis opened the door for the two men and Yoshimori led away Mr. Bakura from the Ishtar home.

With a thin, gentle looking hand, she shut the door. A silence encompassed the whole of the room and Malik felt an icy sensation develop on his skin, anticipating something.

On the frame, Isis's hand fisted.

The knuckles on the back of it turned almost white.

Nobody said anything.

Rishid hadn’t moved.

The silence was torturous.

There were unspoken secrets within it that teetered on the edge of distrust. Malik felt his shoulders tense when Isis flattened her hand out smooth on the doorframe and her eyes, a darker, bluer color than his own landed on him.

Her outburst broke all barriers.

“Tell me!” She rounded on Malik with a gaze which burned with the thousands of lies he had told her in his life. “Tell me, Malik. Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with that boy’s disappearance!”

She didn’t touch him. Didn’t get any closer. She searched for her truth from a distance—a truth she wanted to hear but could not find—not in him.

“Tell me you didn’t do anything to him.”

Since the death of their father, Malik had never seen his sister cry.

Not on the day he left.

Not when they reunited.

Not even after learning of his wrongdoings or the Rare Hunters.

She didn’t cry, then, either, as she stood, glaring, but her mouth had turned. The strength in her, despite the outward anger, had morphed into an unrecognizable, shaken face, whose last shred of strength could crumble at any moment, revealing her. The strength of her—gone.

He didn’t know how to handle her.

Malik stared, feeling as though his own sister had struck him. He was unable to reach her, even so close.

He opened his mouth, at first feeling small and meek, like a child of ten. Then, anger welled up, and his mouth closed, clenched, subdued.

Inside, he heard his own voice over and over in his mind—

_ How can you think that of me? _

The silence went on.

It was Rishid, Malik’s ever present shadow, who stepped forth, gently placing his hands on the quivering shoulders of their sister.

She flinched, and upon seeing who had touched her, shrunk under their weight.

“Please, Isis,” he said, pulling her even further away from Malik. She tried to shrug him off, but Rishid continued to guide her away until she conceded looking small herself between Rishid's arms. “It’s been a long day—for all of us,” Rishid continued, avoiding Malik’s eye.

If he had been particularly sensitive to Isis before, Malik was more so of Rishid right then, when he turned without acknowledging him, without a word, to lead Isis away to another part of their home.

Left alone, the weight of his sister’s words grew heavier in his rattled mind.

To hear her accuse him—

His brows furrowed and his mouth coiled with bottled resentment.

A hand reached under the strands of his hair to dig into his scalp.

The same arm extended in a swift movement and his fist slammed into the nearest wall. It hurt, as it should have, and he closed his eyes absorbing the pain.

Ryou was gone and Isis thought it was Malik’s doing.

He breathed out through his nose and removed his fist from the dent he’d made.

He closed his eyes.

Malik felt that way, too.

But a blame of that magnitude was his to cast, not something he easily accepted from someone else. Not when it hurt as much as it had.

The day had passed and night had overtaken the sun. Just like that, hours had passed since he’d searched the ruins and found nothing.

_ Nothing. _

There was no trace of Ryou or what could have happened to him.

With no exits besides the main entrance, Ryou couldn’t have gone anywhere other than _ in _. There was no evidence of that, though, given how rubble closed off nearly everything further. Had he really fallen down a crevice as Mr. Yoshimori suggested, he would have been the first to find him.

But he hadn't.

There was nothing.

In the house, he heard no more of either Isis or Rishid.

His mind had stopped shouting at him with the echoes of his sister’s voice.

In the end, he was left with the only thing he could think—

_ Ryou, where did you go? _

* * *

The hair along his arms sensed the current of an unknown element before he did.

His instincts jolted him—and immediately his eyes snapped open. With an automatic motion, he swiped the knife situated beside him, clutching it close as the blood in his veins and the rippling silence stilled.

There was nothing, to the general person, that served as an indicator of something out of the ordinary.

But _ he _ took note of it.

His ear twitched at the shifting currents in the air. His eyes roamed the indiscernible dark ceiling _ sure _that was where the oddity originated.

He sat up, slowly and without sound, winding around the rubble to crouch.

There was a cough—human—and the muscles in his body tensed as his elbow angled to defend himself from whomever had interrupted his sleep.

Bakura listened for it again, grabbing the edge of a stone surface, touching his way along the dark, body accustomed to finding its way around the unlit underground, feet able to sense an uneven patch of ground without trouble.

There was breathing and a confused sounding groan not far off from where he was, heavy, as though whoever had, by some sad turn of their fate wandered _ there _of all places, traversed without so much as a moment of rest. They were tired.

His arm relaxed a little until he remembered the soldiers he’d encountered earlier, insistent upon capturing him for the various items hadn't been able to keep his hands off.

Well, that and assault for having to escape the man who had caught his wrist as he went for another _ free _ bun.

If they were the soldiers he’d made acquaintance with, then he either had to wait it out or—his hand tightened around the hilt of the knife—save himself before any more were called over.

Aptly hiding himself behind a standing pillar, he remained in a crouching stance, peering through the pitch black. He heard scuffles on the ground, a string of gibberish, and then a pause. The pale figure moving through the shadows let Bakura know there was just the lone personage and they neither spoke like a soldier nor carried themselves with the presence he’d familiarized them with.

He narrowed his eyes, curiosity welling up in wanting to know how this person managed to walk down the stairs without him hearing them sooner. Better yet, how did they manage to find the underground temple, a good way from the nearest builder's village? Nobody ventured in the direction of the ruined ghost town, virtually unknown to outsiders—unless they were particularly interested in the view.

He stuck his neck out like a turtle and withdrew it when his eardrums were tickled with a groggy voice.

_ “What—why…?” _

The voice trailed off, yet Bakura’s ears piqued in interest toward the string of words they failed to recognize. He pressed his face closer to the pillar, wanting to hear if he had simply misheard or…

The person continued to speak in their strange tongue, and Bakura naturally inclined his head, now knowing this person wasn’t a soldier of the royal guard—though, he remaining cautious because he didn’t know what other type of person they could be. Surely a scribe or a builder wouldn't have wandered so deep into the surrounding cliffs of the Valley?

_ “Malik? Can you hear me?” _

Sand crunched below feet that weren’t his, and as the bodiless voice came into better view, Bakura’s body tensed; his muscles grew rigid. The grip on his knife slackened in a paradox of safety.

The first thing he saw was a head of white, almost etherealness, like a veil on top of their head—and attached below, a visible floating specter detaching itself from the stone tablet.

“_ Ow— _”

Bakura heard nothing more from it, for a moment, thinking it had disappeared. He kept his back to the pillar, sticking out his neck and listening for more.

He peered through the shadows, the little bit of moonlight reaching down from cracks in the ceiling not helping him in the slightest.

And then, just like that, a second source of light appeared.

The white of it came sudden and intense and bright and hurt his eyes with its strength that Bakura had to shield himself with an empty hand.

At first he thought dawn had come between seconds. But that was impossible.

Then he thought firelight—

But it wasn’t firelight. Firelight was orange, gave off a scent, and crackled. It could never light up a room in the same way.

This light—

It was _ brighter _than the moon. It overtook it.

Like harsh rays of a white sun, it came from the palm of the spirit’s hand, bouncing off walls and creating deep black shadows between ridges.

Bakura remained rooted with his head exposed, in wonder of what he witnessed.

With the light, though, he could finally see a face underneath a pile of white hair, almost as pale and ghostly as the hair itself. They looked around blinking at the surroundings in a sort of personal, distracted fashion.

As they did so, Bakura absorbed as much as he could see, from their bizarre appearance to the floor they stood on. Apart from the sickly color of their skin, the fabric, which Bakura supposed, was clothing sticking to them—when they turned, Bakura saw, even at the distance he stood from them, the soft curve of their face, looking rather afraid.

Oddly, the tension in him eased in the small instant.

He thought of them_ , _ who made light appear from their hands like stars in the night sky _ — _

_ Where did _ you _ come from? _

Lost in the musing, and having forgotten he was peering past the barrier of the stone pillar, he missed the subtle shift in the other’s position which directly pointed the illumination at him.

He took a clumsy, startled step back, and the light bounced off the surface of the dagger he held, sending shards of silver into the room.

He managed to withhold from voicing his frustration and shuffled around the rubble hoping he had been quick enough to avoid their gaze.

_ “H-hello? Malik, is that you?” _

Bakura’s heart pounded from the stress.

To make matters worse, he hadn’t heard the sounds, which descended then, with shouts, from above.

“I heard something coming from the underground!”

He inwardly cursed.

They came stampeding down the steps with orange, crackling fire—and the white light extinguished.

_ “Malik?” _

“Halt!” 

“How many of them are there?”

The two soldiers behind the vanguard drew their spears and the shadows of their weapons reached along the walls.

He looked between them, noting how the apparition had shrunk near the stone and stared up, unsure, at the soldiers of the royal guard.

Bakura remained lurking behind the cover of rubble. Perhaps it was because of his intense dislike for any of the pharaoh’s servants, but his mouth immediately tightened into a downward curve, and he weighed the knife in his hand, gripped it tight, and prepared for a fight.

The royal guard, too, seemed perturbed by the other’s presence that they actually managed to keep their mouths shut for a whole second before regaining their sanctimonious tone—

“State your name. Are you the thief who took from the inn?”

The pale figure remained motionless before opening their mouth.

“_ I don't understand? _”

“We are the royal guard and have been given orders to arrest any and all who disturb the peace of the land.”

_ “I don’t speak— M-My friend, he’s the one who—” _

A soldier from behind spoke up.

“What is he saying?” He motioned with a spear and his brows furrowed.

“Is that even him?”

“The innkeeper said gray hair.”

“The innkeeper must have been blind,” the first soldier stated. The curved sword remained attached to his side. “It doesn’t matter as long as we take someone back. Arrest him. We’ll deliver him in the morning.”

Bakura saw how they handled him. He didn’t even _ resist, _ at least, not in the manner Bakura would have. He did put up a bit of a fight, tugging and protesting with nonsensical words (though the royal guard wouldn’t heed words in their own language anyhow), until he gave in when the hilt of a spear knocked the wind out of him. He folded immediately in half and two soldiers flanked him and dragged him to his feet.

As he was brought closer to the soldier who held the flames, one of the flanking soldiers stopped in his tracks.

“Hey—his skin—”

The heaving figure was dropped and he would have landed much heavier on his side had he not been held by the other soldier.

“He’s—!”

“What? What is it?” The obvious commander of the three brought the fire closer, confused at the recoil.

Seeing his companion’s reaction, the second soldier flanking him unsurely released his grip as well.

Their captive remained on his knees struggling to breathe.

“Don’t you see? Look at him!”

The commanding soldier, still unaware of the situation, passed the fire in front of him.

With the flames fanning at close range, the figure lifted his head.

He opened his mouth and the sounds of his indiscernible words echoed with tinges of plea. His words were cut short as the soldier struck him again with the side of the spear.

“He’s a demon. Can’t you hear? He’s trying to curse us all!”

Though the second soldier took an apprehensive step away hearing his companion, the commander remained where he stood, unshaken.

“Don’t be superstitious,” he said. “He’s probably one of those from the north. They all speak in strange tongues.”

“But look—” The soldier lifted the stranger’s chin with the sharp end. “Green eyes. And his skin—nobody but men without proper burials and witches have skin like his.”

_ Green eyes? _ Bakura thought to himself. He continued to watch the situation unfold. The hand holding the knife had gone slack.

The commanding soldier peered down at him.

“The innkeeper would have said something if he looked like—this,” he said, gesturing at the phantom’s features.

“They’re known to change appearances—No, you musn’t touch him! You’ll advance your death.”

The commander held back from touching the captive’s face.

After a moment’s pause, he snorted and nodded to the other soldier, the one less superstitious.

“Take him. Regardless of whether its him we’re looking for or not, he’s bound to fetch a good price either way. Someone will take him off our hands, if not the jailers.”

“I refuse to touch him.”

The commanding soldier, tired of the rambling, turned on his heel. He placed his hand on the hilt of the sword at his side and stuck out his chest. He was by no means the tallest of the three, but it was evident from the little Bakura had seen, why he was the one leading.

“Are your hands no good to you?”

The foot-soldier looked down at the sword, glancing between the curved edge, his companion, and the kneeling, breathing figure on the ground. The grip on his spear twisted, slackened, and Bakura could tell before the soldier that the decision had been made for him already.

Complying, the no-longer-apparition, given that he was solid in form, was carried between the two infantrymen, squirming to no avail.

_ “Where are you taking me? I said I’m not trespassing. Please—my friend. He can explain everything to you. He’s right above—” _

Bakura heard, rather than saw, a sickening wet blow connect to the side of his mouth. He heard no more of the now-prisoner as he was led away.

The dark clutched at Bakura, guarding with its cloak of invisibility as the royal guard retreated with someone else in what should have been his own capture.

The last of the footsteps began to fade away as they ascended, but the words of the fearful soldier carried down the stairs— 

“Quiet! He speaks curses to us. We’re going to die. We’re going to die, damn you.”

* * *

When Ryou exited the temple, escorted by three men, and tied to the back of a horse, the sun had sunken well behind the horizon.

They had walked all night, and Ryou, without the luxury of a horse, dragged his feet along the sand, each step heavier and more painful than the last.

Soon, the color of the sky would begin to blend with the coming sunlight and the stars would retreat into the deeper recesses of night with dawn. He thought, in no more than a few hours, the sun would rise and the terrible ordeal would end, Ryou having been escorted to a better part of the country could call for help, his father or Malik would arrive, and his troubles for the century would be complete. He could return to Japan and continue his studies, Egypt a traumatic chapter in his book, finished.

He twisted his wrists and tugged at the rope binding them, once again hurting his skin from the action. He could scarcely move his elbows, and his shoulders were numb at that point, the muscles of them tight and sore from having his arms tied back.

Something scuttled along the sand and buried itself below his feet before he trudged on its elusive, tiny body. The men kept their distance from him, riding and walking ahead, occasionally peering over their shoulder to see he was still following. Which, of course he was—where could he escape to, not knowing his way around miles and miles of indiscernible sand and dunes?

Not only that—

Ryou skimmed what little he could see in the insisting dark.

The road he’d journeyed on with Malik earlier in the morning was gone as far as he could tell. Upon his ascension from the underground temple, he expected to come across the paved road—and Malik there, too, waiting for him. The winding black pavement had disappeared, along with Malik, leaving no trace. Ryou could explain how he could have missed any signs of road: it was plainly too dark to see very well with only an outdated mode of lighting, the torch. Still, there was no sign of electricity for miles and he had seen his fair share of buildings traversing across the Nile to expect tiny dots of light visible, even from that distance. He clutched onto the idea that there was a lingering power outage from an odd, late-year sandstorm. Even that could explain Malik’s absence. He would have had to take shelter. It accounted for the missing motorcycle, too. Had he the need to leave suddenly, Malik would never leave his motorcycle behind.

Evidently, however, he could leave Ryou.

He felt the inside of his cheek throb and tasted blood on his bottom lip, crusted from an earlier blow to the side of his mouth. It stung.

The majority of the journey had been spent retracing the chain of events that eventually led him to being in actual bindings. As his captors led the way into an unknown, Ryou had scouted his surroundings in the small hope he’d see something of importance stand out and tell him how far they were from the city of Luxor. They had yet to cross a river, and a river was no small feat to miss, even in the dark.

The men were dressed oddly and didn’t appear to speak any dialect of Arabic he was familiar with. They didn’t seem to understand the standard dialect he spoke to them in return. That could have been in part, he thought, for him being out of practice. It didn’t account for the violence he had been subject to, or, as Ryou observed, the strange garb they wore in favor of official officer’s uniforms. He was beginning to think they weren’t officials at all. They hadn’t any vehicles, their choice of weaponry was primitive, and their clothing resembled that which he’d seen in his father’s research books.

He blinked up at the sky, noting how little the stars had moved in the minutes he’d retreated into his thoughts. Behind him, Ryou could see naught but pitch black— though, once in a while, he thought he’d sense a fellow traveler following their footsteps. He had thought he had seen someone in the temple too, before his abduction, at first, expecting Malik. He had hoped it was Malik after the first strike from the men. He knew it wasn’t him when the second strike came. Ryou wondered, then, if there had been someone there with him at all to witness his capture. Someone who could call for help and inform his father of his whereabouts. 

Ryou peeked once more down the long path they had traveled with little expectation.

Where had the road gone? Where were the lights and buildings and modernity that had, at least, in some way, touched the historic site that had been the Valley of the Kings? His thoughts seemed to increase the unsettling sickness forming in the pit of his stomach.

He had seen no light bulbs within the temple itself, one of the first things he had noted earlier when Ryou first visited.

One of the men spoke to him in a harsh tone and pulled on the rope, an obvious gesture to make him walk faster. Ryou picked up his pace and continued with his own thoughts, given the men did not speak, and when they did, he could not decipher the cold sounding words they directed at him.

When he had initially awakened, because at some point, he concluded, he must have fallen asleep, the first thing he did had been to open his eyes and sit up in the damp dark place, head spinning. The vertigo lasted until his legs worked proper in aiding his balance to stand. That had been the general sensation at first, with the little he assessed from lighting the place with his phone and then the unreliable assistance from wavering torchlight. Not that he had been given time to explore the place in depth, either.

Now Ryou wasn’t so sure whether it had been the same underground shrine, despite the familiarity. Now he wasn’t sure whether he was in the same valley, whether he was still in _ Luxor _. He had to be though, for there was nothing that could account for him waking up elsewhere.

How had he fallen asleep in the first place? The last thing he remembered was arriving with Malik, looking around the place and then—

And then?

Ryou closed his eyes and tried to think back on what exactly he had been doing before waking up in the dark shrine, alone, abandoned, and alongside hostile strangers with swords and spears.

He had been walking along the crumbling walls of what was the last remaining evidence of Kul Elna, the location Bakura staked his existence in reaching. Ryou had run his hands along the pillars, traced the unseen footsteps of those before him who were gone, but undoubtedly had existed. It was looking down the bottomless pit of where the Millennium Stone had been that Ryou’s remembrance became interrupted, like a glitch in the reality of his mind.

He recalled walking around the open mouth of it, thinking how easy it was to fall down the hole.

His bones were still intact, though, and there was no soreness to be considered which could have signaled if he had _ actually _ fallen. Besides, he hadn’t woken up at the _ bottom _ of a hole.

There had been a sensation of falling, however. It was the peculiarity of that certain memory that made Ryou feel as though his own memories were somehow pieced together wrong.

He had begun to take a step away from the opening when the same sense of vertigo he had awakened with, set in. It had felt as though the whole shrine had swallowed him whole.

A cool breeze from the north sent a shudder through him. 

Ryou was rattled with a harsh tug from his captors, ears twitching at the barked vowels and syllables.

He soon understood why the men had paused their horses and pointed in the direction of the brightest star overhead. Over the horizon, Ryou saw nothing worth noting. Everything looked much the same to him, except that the ground underneath his feet had begun to flatten and the low hills of sand had dispersed into the ground. With something obviously beginning to happen between the men, Ryou straightened to his full height, ready to bolt.

One of the men neared him with an outstretched hand, the other preoccupied with a dangerously sharp-looking spear, and naturally, Ryou took various steps back. He had already tasted the blunt end and had the lingering flavor of blood in his mouth to prove it. He didn’t want to experience what the sharp end felt like any time soon.

He said something that Ryou couldn’t understand, but given how the second soldier bounded toward him, weapon in hand, he felt it was a perfectly reasonable response to shrink away from both.

The man on the horse was the one holding the rope attached to his bindings, however, and he was not letting Ryou escape anytime soon. Easily, with the weight of the horse aiding him, he prevented any further movement away. The men were free to surround him.

Ryou skirted to one side, and then another, trying once again to clarify the situation with words. At one point, he forgot much of the necessary language needed to explain his situation and switched to Japanese. The men either sensed the shift or did not care for it, because the next thing he knew, Ryou fell to his knees, the back of his head burning with pain. Someone shouted in anger—or pain, he couldn’t tell and then his face met sand.

With one corner of his eye still open, Ryou saw the stars in the sky arc overhead and thought night was ending. As his lids closed, behind them, he imagined that upon waking he would see the pink of dawn, the violet of the morning clouds, and the red of the burning sunrise overtaking everything.


	3. Crossed Paths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: descriptions of dead bodies, descriptions of insects (flies)

Night passed rather uneventfully. Bakura, who had tossed and turned on the floor of the temple for hours, hadn’t slept a wink after the royal guard had left. He had been on edge for the remaining hours of the night, expecting their return. The thought of another patrol squad being dispatched to search the ruins had also crossed his mind, and aided his anxiety in keeping him awake.

He could have searched for another place to hide for the time being, but there were little places for additional refuge other than between the cliffs. The temperatures after dark were often cold, and Bakura had neither flame to warm him, nor the luxury of starting one when the guards had already been drawn to the ruins once already. He remained instead, under the roof of the shrine and wrapped in what little comfort it could afford to someone such as him.

For hours, every sound had been cause for alarm. Each breeze from above was reason enough for Bakura to spring to his feet, and scuttle deeper into the curtain of shadow. To put it simply, Bakura had gotten little sleep, doing nothing but flinch at noises, or either lay in the dark with his eyes closed, the gesture of sleep not enough to bring him the rest he sorely needed.

He opened his eyes at first light, his gaze swiftly skimming the surroundings before it went to the knife beside him. He snatched it up off the floor to hide it under the many folds of his loose clothing. The sharp weapon would be necessary if anything threatening came across his path (such as the guards) while he transported his acquired relics, but he hoped not having to resort to it. Rather than that, Bakura had begun to think that maybe the other person who had been arrested in his place had been enough to satisfy the patrol and the pharaoh’s cells for the time being. He fastened the knife securely at his side, the small bag which carried few items of gold, likewise.

The morning was silent, as opposed to the previous noisy night. Bakura supposed it made sense. He had been on edge and expected things to jump out at him he knew weren’t really there. In the morning, the sun revealed what his eyes couldn’t discern before, and it left him with some sustained peace as opposed to paranoia and suspicion.

He had never noticed just _how_ quiet the shrine could be. The place was eerie, to say the least, especially when Bakura himself knew of what had transpired there, of all places, and what had happened to the people who had inhabited the remote village hidden between the cliffs. The shadow of a memory sent chills up his spine, and he rubbed at the raised hairs, pressing them down, not liking the least bit to where his thoughts were straying. He wasn’t going to remember. He wasn't.

The silence of the morning made much of everything the night before seem like a dream, and his restlessness, the effects of a continuous nightmare. Bakura remained rattled even hours later—so much, that as he prepared to exit the grim temple, his limber pair of legs almost missed dodging a pile of rubble, and brought him to the edge of where the _stone_ lay. He regained his balance when his hand met the cool surface of rock.

It was an aggressive presence—aggressive in how its mere existence commanded the entire room. The rock jutted out from the floor, expanding its mass with an enormous size and weight. Bakura never liked it—didn’t like how it looked, didn’t like the memories it threatened to reopen, didn’t like how there were seven black cavities, empty, signifying what had once been there, but now, held nothing at all.

He took his hand back, disliking the sensation it sent up his arm, like a low thrum, and unheard buzzing that threatened to consume his senses. He took a step further back, and then another, placing distance between himself and the stone, convincing himself he had heard nothing at all coming from beyond. The imagined sounds did not bode well with what Bakura had already seen.

He had been right, then, in thinking that the ghost had appeared from the cursed stone. Bakura felt a tug from it, his arm wanting to brush his flesh over the surface again, as though it beckoned him with its mere existence. He managed to hold back the urge, remembering what the stone had once held in those empty openings.

It was where the inhabitants of the village of Kul Elna had shouted their final woes and voiced unheard prayers. It wasn’t a resting place, either—Bakura thought the site rather sinister—but he hadn’t many options out there, near the Valley of the Kings. He carried contraband, and it was best to keep a low profile until he had somewhere to dump it all for trade. Someplace, preferably, where they wouldn’t ask too many questions.

Bakura preferred to steer clear of the ruins for the most part, when he could, especially when he traveled down to the Valley of the Kings. It had been necessary for him to venture into the ruins if he was going to dodge patrols, though, and remain away from dispatched guards. He liked to think his movements were good enough to slip between crowds of markets, unseen, and take a few things here or there, as he traveled to his destinations. However, it looked as though he still needed day practice if the old man had spotted him swiping several figs and pocketing them in his clothes, and from such a distance. Well, his blunder was understandable when he was only a part-time thief.

_It was just a piece of fruit. No need to send a fucking envoy_, Bakura thought, remembering the fig had been quite sour. He bitterly blamed the man’s report on his reason to deviate from his normal route and seek refuge from such an outlying settlement. There wasn’t a need to send an entire squad out there to search him for sour fruit he’d already eaten.

He kicked the dirt at his feet, sending it back to the cursed stone. In the end, it didn’t matter who or what he blamed. One way or another, he eventually returned to the dismal place, whether it was his own body not letting him forget his origins, or to remind himself of what the crown was capable of and justifying his thieving acts against them. He dug his feet into the dirt, sucking his teeth in frustration. It had been someone else caught, and Bakura could foresee the outcome of their misfortune. That _person_—if he was correct to call him that—had been taken in Bakura’s place. Remaining a free man was what mattered to him, for however long Bakura thought that would last now that his occasional nightly tasks was beginning to grow him a popular reputation amongst the royal guard patrolling the west side of the Nile. The growing popularity was mostly in response to just how _adventurous _he’d let himself be as of late—emerging from the invisibility of shadows to scare the watch from time to time. The less superstitious of the nighttime sentinels suspected at the very least, bands of thieves. At most, they blamed their peers’ irrationality on restless nights in the midst of graves. The setting itself was enough to spring forth talk of _ghosts_ in anyone’s mind, and that was what some claimed his presence to be—a wandering ghost walking between tombs, looking for a proper place to rest.

So it was with a tad of guilt that Bakura recalled an _actual_ ghostlike appearance from his home village’s ruins as the one having been taken in his stead.

A light shiver ran up his spine. It was always chilly in the underground temple, and Bakura could never exactly decipher why. The place was damp, though he couldn’t recall a recent storm passing. Anytime Bakura did end up within its walls, it was as though hundreds of unseen eyes were on him, simply—_waiting. _He didn’t know for what or why he thought those things, but he preferred not to dwell on matters such as those, lest he began spewing superstitions about ghosts and undead men as well.

He released a breath and tried not to peer through the low shadows along the walls, and search for leering eyes. He made a quick turnaround and tried to shake his thoughts. Bakura was fine with whatever demon, witch, or _ghost_, that had been taken in his place. He didn’t think himself as someone who unnecessarily labeled things he didn’t understand as demons or the like, but he was well aware that some things existed outside the realms of both life and death—things which couldn’t be explained with natural terms, and trying to find explanations for them did not refute their existence.

That person he saw, the ghost of them which had spirited into existence from the cursed stone could mean nothing good. The remains of the village were a doomed place, and only something pitiful would have emerged from them. Something like—someone like—

_No, _Bakura thought to himself. He furrowed his brows as the gnawing at his conscience began to seep into his more rational part of the brain. Nothing but miserable creatures would have emerged from such a damned place like the stone where no man had been given proper rest. Nothing else, even under the best of circumstances, would arise otherwise.

He was tempted to glance over his shoulder at that same site where the rock sat in both dark and silence. Like the guard had said, if that _person_ had really come from Hell, then the soldiers would die. Bakura had no misgivings in wishing the royal guard death but—

He had seen it—that person—on his knees.

Blood had spilled from his mouth. Bakura had heard weakened breaths fall from his lips anytime a blow had connected with their cheek, stomach. Deviating into thoughts he told himself he wouldn’t, Bakura recalled the fact that that person hadn’t used magic on the soldiers—white magic Bakura had seen them use to illuminate the entirety of the room.

He stopped at the base of the staircase leading up and out of the temple.

Yes, he was fine with it. With members of the royal guard dying. With the demise of those blind followers of the pharaoh who took the so-called king’s word as law.

But to Bakura, that prisoner, the person who had been taken in his place, that strange apparition of a man who had appeared in the dead of night—It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep thinking of him as some type of demon, and instead Bakura was beginning to think, with a pit of dread, of him as something much more akin to human_._

* * *

The men were dead.

The river ran silently its course, its dark waters so placid, it looked like there was hardly a current. The sun was bright and hot, and reflected white and harsh on the water.

Ryou blinked, the silence around him like a constant buzzing in his ears.

The dead men stared up at him, their upside down visage, eyes wide and white and unblinking, and Ryou’s thoughts, since awakening and spotting them, having gone blank. Their upturned eyes were windows of white; their mouths were agape in a mute horror. Their cheeks were sunken, pressing against smooth curves of bone beneath what little flesh was left, making the men look as though their life force was directly taken and sucked from them.

He breathed—and breathed in again that still, quiet of the desert, where not a single bird sung above nor life stirred below. Ryou could have screamed. But he didn’t. His mouth remained equally soundless, save for the trembling release of air between it.

His head throbbed, a distant sting reminding him how he had come upon the situation. He had been taken by unknown figures at the underground temple. After which, he had walked an indiscernible length on foot. Sometime during, he had been struck by something right near his nape—the back of another spear, Ryou presumed—sparking a disagreement between his captors. The scuffle had ensued after his face met the ground, the dispute resulting in a physical struggle from someone trying to stop the damage to him from getting worse. Ryou recalled the rise of morning but had lost consciousness from the strike soon after.

Which left him presently on his knees, under the scorch of a blazing sun, staring at the three men strewn on the ground, limp, stiff, and very much dead. He hadn’t moved since rousing and seeing their corpses. His mouth remained shut despite the terror housed in his lungs. Ryou’s eyes followed the zig-zag droning path of a black fly crawling along the rim of one of the dead soldier’s mouths. Occasionally, there was a hot breeze which disturbed them, and Ryou felt the sweat on him run from the back of his head, down his neck, and along his spine.

The bindings on him were tight behind his back; the soreness of his wrists returned him to the grounding reality. He shifted, and the rough material burned his wrists, eliciting a pained hiss from him. His legs felt like jelly, and his muscles quivered when he attempted to stand. Everything in his mouth tasted like blood. Ryou took a deep breath, and he didn’t like how close it was to sounding like a sob.

The treatment from the men had been terrible but—Ryou shut his eyes and occupied himself with loosening his ties—they were human. They had been human, he corrected, and Ryou’s heartstrings had pulled when discovering their lifeless bodies motionless on the ground. He had wanted to touch them, verify they were really dead, but it was just him, ignoring the truth, wanting to hope he could somehow save them.

He grunted, tired. The rope wasn’t coming undone, and the more he moved, the more his movements exacerbated the pain. He didn’t know what to do. He had to do something, though. He needed to get free of his bindings and report to the authorities of the deceased men so someone would know their bodies were out there. In the moment of idleness, Ryou’s gaze fell on them, the dead men, all three, face up on the sand, with the whites of their eyes gleaming back at him under the light of the hot sun in a lifeless stare. His chest stilled, and Ryou stirred in his place, attempting to put some distance between himself and the stiff corpses. Whatever had happened to them, and if only by association of being human, Ryou didn’t think anyone deserved that sort of death. The manner in which their mouths twisted, how their muscles contorted their limbs—it didn’t look the least bit peaceful.

He let out another shaky breath when his eyes could no longer maintain themselves on the men. As the situation caught up with him, the lag in his brain caused by both the blow, the heat, and the shock, his heart steadily increased its beat. Ryou began to look around him, the atmosphere becoming confining despite the open space. Whatever had killed his captors, hadn’t taken Ryou’s life, but that didn’t mean the threat wasn’t around anymore. Knowing his luck, if the circumstances which he found himself in wasn’t already evidence of what sort he had, Ryou anticipated the killer could have remained nearby, lying in wait.

He picked himself up onto the caps of his knees, as though that would allow him a high enough vantage point to see past the encroaching other half of desert in the distance. He gulped a dry breeze of air that made his lips stick, and his throat feel like paper. He could see nothing but sand and sky for miles.

How long exactly had they traveled for? The party of four had left sometime in the night, but the exact hour was lost to him. Apart from that—How much time had Ryou lost since the hint of dawn when he had been beaten?

Ryou twisted to see the river behind him, spotting a horse he remembered had carried who he assumed was the commanding presence of the group. It swept its long tail across its behind, languidly swatting at river flies.

The fact of the matter was, Ryou had been indisposed for an indeterminate amount of time. The sun hadn’t yet reached its peak, but he couldn’t tell from its position, either, how long it had been since dawn had broken. He couldn't assess how long it would take him to return to the one place he had any familiarity with. Besides that—he blinked at the roadless scene before him. There was nothing in the vicinity that could direct him in his attempted return.

Even though perturbed and senseless, Ryou knew one thing he shouldn’t do—stay where he was. Sitting under the baking sun and housing the beginnings of thirst was never a good combination. He repositioned himself on his haunches, brought his knees up to his chest, and looped his arms forward under his feet so his hands were no longer behind him. They remained tightly bound, but his balance was much easier to maintain with usable access to his upper limbs. Ryou stood on trembling legs, purposely ignoring the corpses and the heavy drone of flies clouding around them.

Ryou by no means had a way with which to cross the river, and he could not see any roads or bridges that would lead him to the nearest town. He gulped as he glanced at the horse strolling near the river, drinking from the water. Ryou could have used some water himself, but he had mind to restrain himself until he reached civilization and could press his mouth to a liter or two.

As he saw it, his only viable and present option was to find a way to return from where he had come. Going forward would only throw him deeper into the unknown, and going backwards, at least as Ryou saw it, he had a destination in mind—even if it was currently lost to him.

He knew what the temple looked like from the outside, and had a clear picture in his mind of the cliffs surrounding it. If he continued in a straight direction, Ryou was sure he’d eventually catch sight of those cliffs, seeing as how they were big enough not to miss. Ryou was then convinced, in a literal sense, that he would be able to retrace his steps, find the underground shrine, where on some chance, he would be found by Malik.

Ryou’s heart sank, and his belly flopped upon the thought. He felt himself lose his sanity more and more when he held on to that inkling of hope. Dread had built in the pit of his stomach since his capture with the lightless and roadless journey he’d traveled, and now, with the dead around him. It was the type of dread that made Ryou think of silly things that he did not want to acknowledge just yet but—-he breathed in, breathed out—he was beginning to suspect against _all _sanity and logic, that Malik perhaps _wouldn’t _be waiting for him. Malik wouldn’t be there, looking for Ryou at all because—because—

He shut his eyes and shook his head, breathing in more lungfuls of air. He was determined to return to that damned temple, to _see_ Malik there, to prove his demented, fantastical mind wrong, and make his way back home without any further traumatic experiences to deal with.

With a clench of his teeth, Ryou took one step forward, and then another, until he couldn’t anymore. The rope around his wrists held him strictly in place. Ryou’s eyes followed the length of rope, taut, and ungiving.

It was the deceased body of one of his captors whose hands remained coiled around the rope of his bindings even in death, that was the cause of Ryou’s inescape. He inhaled sharply, a spark of panic causing him to pull, insisting with frantic gestures that the corpse let him go. The fingers around the rope had gone stiff long ago, however, and the rigidity of their postmortem state made it damn sure he wasn’t about to be let go so easily.

He didn’t have anything to cut himself free with, either—

Swiftly, Ryou glanced in various directions until his gaze landed on the long spears abandoned on the ground. He blinked at their sharpened points gleaming in the sun. In one motion, he dropped back on his knees, and scrambled forward to reach for one with his still joined hands. Ryou brought the tip to his face, the point of the weapon promising sharpness. Ryou placed it between his knees to hold, then slid it between his wrists. When the position wouldn’t allow anything to cut, he turned the spear lengthwise on the ground, pinning it with one leg. The change in strategy hadn’t worked—either his weight was not enough, as the weapon kept rolling out from under him, or the spear’s edges were not sharp enough for the thick band of rope.

He looked down at his wrists, abandoning the weapon on the ground. It hadn’t even frayed the bindings and Ryou was beginning to feel an additional weight of exertion atop that one that had developed under the sun. He let the inefficient weapon completely roll from beneath his weight, and sat next to it. He held back a frustrated urge to scream.

The sun prickled at his skin, and Ryou felt sweat on various parts of his body he hadn’t felt sweat before. He sniffled, a woozy, lightheaded feeling developing. He looked down at his bound hands, his pants, dirty and scuffled at the knees, and at the dead men with their weapons drawn.

He remained like that, staring, feeling worse and worse about everything. Not only did he not have any way of letting himself free, but he couldn’t even call for help at that point, with his cellphone lacking signal. He slid the rectangular item back into his pocket, having forgotten to reach for it earlier. It hadn’t mattered, though, as there was no cellular service, not even emergency calls, or maps. He bit his lip, that pit of irrational dread developing further with the lack of modernity surrounding him. Why hadn’t his father sent out a search party at that point? Mailk would have told him of his disappearance if he hadn’t found Ryou where he promised he’d be—right? He sniffled again, thinking of them both. It had been at least one day, so—why hadn’t anyone come looking for him yet?

Between his sense of deliriousness, Ryou’s eyes strayed slowly to the fallen weapons of his captors. One. Two. Three. Two spears, one sword. He stiffened, sitting up straight. Ryou fanned his gaze across the bodies of the three men. The first man on the far left, the one whose weapon Ryou had acquired, angled his hand inward where his spear had rolled out from his hand upon death, and Ryou had taken it. Ryou’s head tilted to the man next to him, at the center. He, too, held his weapon in Ryou’s direction.

The corpse on the right was the one Ryou recognized as the commander of the group. His choice of weaponry, had been a sword rather than the long weapon. The curved blade which remained in his stiffened grasp had also been pointed towards him.

Ryou leaned back, bringing his hands closer to him, his face furrowing in both confusion and fear.

All the men had died facing him.

His heart rate began to increase again and he had to remind himself _not_ to panic.

His legs, however, seemed to ignore his petitions not to fear, and Ryou stood swiftly from the ground, forgetting just how tired they had been moments ago. He scrambled to gather his bearings as his heart only pounded faster. The sun was merciless and the heat had obviously gone to his head, he concluded. His thoughts were scattered, running amok, as the most prevailing idea in his mind was the one which contradicted every other rational one which argued in return.

The men dying while facing him didn’t mean—

Ryou breathed, holding his tied hands closer to his chest. He shook his head, clearing the fast acting intrusive blame and guilt.

What exactly did anything not mean _anything _whenever he was involved?

_Now, _Ryou quickly countered.

Now, he told himself again, especially without Bakura. Without the Ring. There was no way Ryou himself could have been responsible for deaths like that—for men to look like their souls had been taken. Not without Bakura to be the one to take them. Not without him anymore.

He was gone. Bakura was _gone_. He hadn’t been there for years, not with Ryou, not in the temple. He hadn’t responded to Ryou’s calls for him. He just hadn’t and Ryou was not about to start believing it was possible to see Bakura again just because he was desperate for salvation. He wasn’t about to start believing Bakura had returned to save him. Ryou had decided it was time to let go and move on—it was much less painful to live that way and make himself believe the lie but—

But—

Ryou felt himself tremble, and his heartstrings tugged in the direction of whence he came.

He didn’t understand how the men’s deaths had come about or why he was the only one left alive. But Ryou was certain of one thing—whatever had killed _them_ hadn’t killed _him._

That could only mean one thing, and the longer he dwelled on the thought, the more his mind pieced together shards of old memories, of habits, of _his_ laugh, and added to Ryou’s dark hope—

He swallowed the sob threatening to escape from his throat. He began winding the excess rope in almost a frantic manner, stepping towards the sword-holding corpse. His eyebrows furrowed, feeling a pang in his chest, and Ryou shut his guilt away with the closing of his eyes, letting his foot fall on the dead man’s wrist. With another inhale, he grabbed at the bindings of his hands, feeling how taut the material had become—and pulled. There was the sound of something cracking, and Ryou fell on his back, sensing true freedom at last.

The sun was ruthless and he felt the intensity of it burn through his closed eyelids. He didn’t let himself rest, though his body screamed at him for it. Ryou knew better than to remain on the sand, body open, and without shelter. He heaved himself up with a gasp, his legs feeling like jelly, and turned away from the river to face the opposite horizon.

He felt pathetic, letting himself believe once again that Bakura was still an option in his life.

Ryou clenched his jaw, taking off in the direction of the desert.

_Bakura—_he thought—_have you really come back?_

* * *

It had taken most of the morning for Bakura to reach the river, the bank of the Nile now visible beneath the rim of his hood as he approached. He lifted his gaze from the ground, the sparkle of water proving his assumption correct. It was about damn time, too; he was thirsty, and some water to clean off his neck and freshen his face wouldn’t be detrimental, either.

As he scanned his eyes along the path, Bakura noticed some additional things that shouldn’t have been there all at once. The first of those things was the lone brown horse down on the left, walking in his direction, shaking its mane, and snorting. He stopped, noticing quickly there was no one atop it, yet it carried several travel bags on its sides.

His own bag, hanging at his left, was heavy with an illegal burden, and Bakura quickly scanned the area for the owner of the horse, possibly nearby. He placed a swift hand on his hip, feeling the knife hidden underneath his clothes. He hadn’t planned on using it, and hadn’t thankfully, during his recent travel, but he liked the sensation of the knife’s hilt beneath his palm nevertheless. It gave him a sense of having control over whatever situation could arise.

The horse grumbled and pawed at the sand when it saw Bakura. It whinnied and batted its tail from side to side. Bakura blinked at it, following the trail of hooves imprinted on the sand that led further and further down the bank, until, at the very end, or as far to the end as Bakura’s eyes could see with the glare of the sun, he saw three dots on the ground. He peered through the heat, thinking the image was a mirage rising from the horizon.

The horse came up to him, and he absentmindedly took a hold of its reins as it approached. The beast was tall, but friendly enough, it seemed, and it let Bakura pet its muzzle awkwardly as his head tried to piece together the scenario and what it meant.

He pulled on the horse’s reins, and it followed Bakura’s footsteps easily enough, letting him guide it. The mare shadowed Bakura as he retraced her marked path, slowly, and eventually, coming up on the three dots and concluding after all, that they were no illusion. He began to see the three dots for what they were—bodies. Upon closer inspection, Bakura saw real enough, that they were not just bodies lying face up on the sand, but corpses.

On his left, the horse grumbled, taking anxious steps back. Bakura returned to her some semblance of freedom, allowing her to place as much distance between herself and the deceased men. He didn’t need a restless horse distracting him as he absorbed the pitiful scene.

No longer having a need for it, Bakura dropped his hand from his hip, letting the knife remain hidden at his side. His eyes landed on the men, all three, their unnatural positions something uncanny to witness, and Bakura had no mind for what to do, let alone think.

He had seen bodies post-death, but that which lay in front of him—Bakura couldn’t remember the last time he’d come across something like that, especially way out there in the desert. Sometimes criminals were released into the wasteland, but never so close to the capital, and especially—he glanced at the mare and her bags—especially not with horses or provisions.

His attention fell on their clothing. They were royal guards—that was something he was certain of. It would certainly explain their mode of transportation and their weapons. On his left, his animal companion nosed the ground, and like hers, his gaze landed on the sandy earth beneath his feet. Their weapons were strewn around, drawn, as though there was a fight but—

Bakura narrowed his eyes as they locked onto the tips of the blades.

There was no blood.

Neither on them, nor on the ground.

That could mean that whatever had killed the patrolmen hadn’t been injured in return but—

His easy explanation didn’t do much to ease the peculiar sensation he felt running beneath the blood in his veins. It was a familiar sensation that thrummed under the air and pulled at his senses and made him narrow his eyes. There was the slightest hint of _it _still amongst them, charging the air. Bakura returned his attention to the men as he mused, to the expression on their faces. He recoiled and his lips instantly formed a mouth of disgust. The sight was enough to distract him from his previous thoughts.

No dead man he’d seen had _ever_ looked like—like _that._

He wasn’t exactly sure how long the men had been dead, but judging by the amount of fat flies crawling in and out of their facial cavities, he presumed they had died long before he had arrived. He held a hand to his nose when a breeze sent the strong scent of a decomposing body in his general direction.

He inhaled from another direction and approached the men, letting his foot land on their shoulder to move them, with the intention to inspect closer. The gesture only disturbed the insects and the black bugs clouded the air. When they dispersed enough, Bakura saw, as he had initially thought, there were no signs of blood or injury on their bodies. There wasn’t a single indication that they’d been pierced by weapons or affected by anything physical.

But, they _had_ been scared during their final moments. Bakura narrowed his eyes as his gaze fell on them again. Their disturbed expressions were proof of the fear during their moments of death.

“Tch—” The sound came out of him before he knew it.

They were guards, that much was known, and seeing them rotting on the ground didn’t affect him as much as it would, presumably, somebody else. Any member of the royal army deserved it in his eyes, for the things they often did on the outskirts of the king’s borders, under supposed orders. Bakura didn’t doubt that even if the pharaoh hadn’t actually voiced those orders, he wouldn’t have a problem with his soldiers terrorizing villages and their people. He curled back his lip and spat on the ground, cleansing his mouth of the vile smell from their corpses.

He lowered himself on one knee and slipped a hand into the robe of one of them, searching for things of value. He purposely ignored their gaping mouths, the whites of their upturned eyes. It would be a shame to leave their personal effects abandoned, in the middle of a wasteland, with no one to take responsibility for them.

Bakura found nothing on the first person and moved on to the second without a hitch in his movements. He pretended he didn’t hear the incessant buzz, pretended he didn’t feel the rounded bodies of flies brush against his cheek, pretended he didn’t smell the stronger scent coming from the bodies he looted. Bakura did his best not to inhale too deeply that odor of death as he dug around beneath the weapon harness of the man. As he unclasped it, Bakura saw underneath, a small glazed shine that called to him. On their neck, there was a thin string of rope, but attached to it was a small pendant, teal in color, shaped like a neat rectangle—and without thinking, Bakura yanked on it, and placed the article below the band of his shendyt.

The smell was becoming unbearable and Bakura hastened his movements. The last of the men carried a sword, and the blade, as Bakura crouched next to him, gleamed white in the sunlight. The flash of light against his eyes sparked another memory of a sword and white and—

Bakura dropped the hand he’d used to shield the reflection from his gaze, as suspicion began to grow with his uneasy thoughts. He’d already seen how many corpses there were in total, but he made sure to confirm by stopping what he was doing, and scanning his eyes over them one, by one. He glanced at the body lying before him, this time, not avoiding his face.

It was what he’d already seen—mouth open like a perpetual yawning horror, eyes reversed and—

He looked away, taking a deep breath of fresh air from the opposite side, and held it. Three men had arrived at the underground temple, all three royal guards. In the dark, there was little to perceive as discerning features, but Bakura had developed good enough eyesight from repeated nightly excursions to recognize basic characteristics on a person through the inky black.

He had his doubts, mainly because the dark beneath the temple hadn’t provided illumination at the time to confirm for certain, nor had the flickering of a flaming torch still enough to provide him a clear picture, but, as he saw the dead men now, their faces were equally distorted in death as the guards’ faces had been in life.

It was no coincidence, though, he was sure, that _three_ royal guards in total had appeared at the underground temple, and that Bakura had chanced upon the same amount, much later during the day—dead.

Two spears, one sword. Just like those infantrymen had carried. Of course, that didn’t mean much—squads were often dispatched with minimal changes to their weaponry but—there were already too many similarities for comfort.

It only left _one_ thing missing.

And it had been the reason for Bakura to follow in pursuit.

He rose from his spot, leaving the guardsman as he’d found him, undisturbed and weapon still in hand. He walked past the remaining armaments, leaving them as they were as well. Only those part of the royal army carried such a kind, and unless he wanted to bring more suspicion on himself in case someone caught him smuggling a bag full of golden funerary relics, he did not want the weapons to be another reason to bring attention and inculpate himself.

Bakura spotted the brown mare already walking in the direction of the river, and let her continue to do so, for the time being. He had to first shake the eeriness clinging to his skin that had suddenly enveloped him.

The _thing _missing—

His hackles rose again, and he was honestly getting tired of spooking himself with mere thoughts of what he’d seen. His legs carried him in the direction of the horse, preferring her company over carcasses, and her living presence up close served to immediately calm him.

He placed a heavy hand on her neck.

_Witch,_ they had called him. _A dead man walking. Demon from Hell._

Bakura wasn’t sure about that last one but—

He wasn’t the type of person to call himself superstitious. He _could _call himself that if only by extension in believing there were things there wasn’t any logical explanation for. However, the last words he’d heard resounding from the upper corridor of the temple had certainly begun to make him rethink his stance on those beliefs—on demons, walking dead, and witches.

_He speaks curses to us, _was what one of the soldiers had said.

Bakura had heard that strange language and thought it meant the person was associated with those from up north. He curled a fist, nervously running his fingers over his knuckles.

_We’re going to die. We’re going to die, damn you—_

He could still hear the guard’s voice, the terror in it still managing to send shivers down Bakura’s spine. The man had said they would all die. And now, Bakura was staring down their corpses, the men as dead as that one guard had predicted.

Yet, the man in their charge was nowhere to be seen.

Bakura searched the bags on the mare out of sheer habit, his movements awkward and shaky. He mindlessly picked apart the baggage, searching for whatever his mind was willing to latch on to as a distraction. It didn’t seem to be working, as the prickling on the back of his neck that had nothing to do with sweat and heat increased, and a sensation of dread developed, as though it warned him of a danger in the desert.

Nothing made sense anymore.

Men didn’t appear from cursed stones. They didn’t disappear without a trace, only leaving victims behind.

He gulped, finding water within the bags. His fingers clumsily untied the top of the sack, and he took a large gulp of it before setting it aside, and continuing to dissect the remaining pouches.

No, he wasn’t worried how the soldiers had _probably_ been killed by _him_. That, maybe, just maybe, his guilt had been misplaced, and maybe that apparition of a man had turned out to _not _be human after all. That wasn’t the part which made him nervous, though. He took a deep breath, feeling the liquid ease his parched throat. He breathed out.

No, the thing that worried Bakura was the fact that he, too, had heard the curses spoken by that person, spoken in that unknown tongue—and he was justifiably apprehensive. If all it took was hearing them, then—would he, too find himself dead soon, like those before him?

He splashed some water on his hand and dabbed it on his face, washing away whatever he could of unnecessary hesitation. With stiff movements, he re-tied the water, placed it in the bags, and refastened the hold on the sack. The horse grumbled from the interruption to her leisure, and swished its tail, swatting at flying bugs.

Bakura wasn’t superstitious. He wasn’t at all.

But neither had the commanding officer been, but that didn’t seem to protect him from an advancing death.

Bakura also knew _not_ to base the scene before him on the panicked words of royal soldiers, but it certainly did not help that he didn’t have many alternatives to draw conclusions from. Had it been anyone else in his position with the belief that an unknown being had appeared from an underground stone and then proceeded to kill everyone who came into contact with them with spoken curses—Bakura would have thought them mental, laughed, thanked them for a good story, and carried on with his day. The fact that he had been witness to it all—and worse—been affected by the curse, made him all the more apprehensive to leave the situation alone as it was and wait to see what happened to him.

He glanced once again at the weapons, trying to decide if he should take them after all. They obviously hadn’t done much good to the royal squad, but other than that—

Bakura narrowed his eyes, swallowing.

He didn’t actually have a _need_ for a weapon.

The thrum in the atmosphere he’d felt before—he could finally accept it for what it was—magic—and it made much more damn sense that he’d detected traces of it in the air if his assumptions that the man who’d emerged from the stone had killed the soldiers by magical means. It would explain the lack of physical evidence—blood—in death.

He let out a trembling breath, akin to a snort, much like the mare beside him had done. He grabbed her by the reins, sidestepping her around the bodies, and easing her away from the scene. As he passed them, Bakura tried not to gaze upon their corpses, lest his fear veered him off the direction he was taking to possibly save himself from death-curses.

He did end up looking at them, unable to help himself, and almost immediately regretted it. There was an extra set of footprints beneath his, not yet having been overtaken by the sand. His mouth pressed together into a grim line. Bakura didn’t believe in either superstition or destiny, so he didn’t think of the extra footprints on the ground as signs from the gods of the path—in this case, a literal one, too—he needed to follow. They led away from the scene, and returned to the desert it looked liked, and probably the underground shrine where, Bakura assumed, was the source of him. He followed in the direction the prints walked in, until he saw only mounds of sand and blue sky.

“Hope you had enough to drink,” he said, speaking conversationally to the horse. It helped calm his nerves somewhat. He tugged at her reins, eyeing the curve of her back. He’d never ridden a horse, but it looked easy enough—from a distance—and the mare had proved she wasn’t temperamental.

It wasn’t easy, Bakura decided, after learning that to perch himself on top, he first had to figure out a way to climb up without falling off. When Bakura did manage to finally mount the beast, balancing himself was another dilemma altogether. Everytime she moved on a whim, he thought he would fall over. After some trial and error however, Bakura found it easier to re-balance himself on time if he sat right in the middle of her back.

The next thing to understand was getting her to move. He pulled on the reins only to see the horse tilt her head back and snort. Somehow, that did nothing but de-courage him from continuing his pursuit.

“You only move when it benefits _you, _huh?” he muttered at the back of her ears. As a last resort, he childishly kicked at her sides—and the mare lurched forward into a canter, making Bakura rethink and assess how balanced he really was. He kept sliding down one side, then he was jolted back, and in the end, he resorted to keeping himself upright with one hand between her shoulders, while keeping the reins in the other.

“That’s a good horse,” he said, though he remained wary of her throwing him off. Behind him, he took one last glance at the horror evidenced on the sand. He could still see their faces in his mind as if he were standing right in front of them. Bakura just hoped his end wouldn’t come like theirs—not if he had the option to try and stop it.

The sack of stolen gold had been hidden between one of the few travel bags fastened to the horse, but his knife remained securely stuck between the belt of his shendyt and the sweat of his skin. He did not think he would end up resorting to something like a knife after everything he’d seen and with the feel of magic undercurrents sweeping the air. Even with how much his skin crawled at the possibility of meeting the strange phantasmic man as he chased after him into the desert, Bakura wanted to think that even though he _had_ heard his voice when it spoke foreign curses, it meant _something_ that his death hadn’t arrived—yet—unlike those of the officials.

He hoped, too, that following after him wouldn’t hasten his demise.

Bakura braced himself against the horse’s back and kicked at her sides until she was off. Bakura could only grip the frayed reins and meet the heat of the desert head on.

If it hadn’t been for his newly acquired method of transportation, Bakura couldn’t give an estimate of how long it would have taken to find him there, walking on the sand.

The sun had only gotten higher in the sky, the sweat on him clung to the back of his neck, and the hood over his head stuck to it like a second skin. He pulled on the reins of his horse and slowed her to a walk.

A hot breeze passed between him, the desert, and the walking apparition. The ground rolled with the air. Bakura wasn’t sure what he had expected when he set off in the direction of the Valley of the Kings, the place he had come from, but it wasn’t the visage of delirious walking presented before him. Maybe it was because of the sun glowering down at them, but the ghostly man had lost any of his grandeur Bakura had seen present in him during the night. _Witches_ certainly were creatures of the night, as well as ghosts, demons, but—

He gripped the reins in his hands tighter, stopping the horse beneath him from approaching too near.

The man in front of him walked a quiet, slow pace, unnerving Bakura further. His feet made no sound along the sand, yet Bakura saw how the ground under his feet was disturbed whenever he took a step. The strange footwear of theirs sunk down deep in the dirt.

He blinked at the sight, ignoring the sting of sweat on his eyelids. _Not a ghost, then. _His lips tightened.

Bakura caught a sudden sight of a long brown length of rope trailing behind him as the man walked forward. Sometime after his capture, he must have been bound by the soldiers, but—Bakura narrowed his eyes—he hadn’t freed himself completely.

Strangely, it was as much a surprise to Bakura to see him still restrained, as it had been seeing him _not _attack the guards with his white colored flash of magic.

Bakura briefly thought maybe the odd specter had been luring the guards all along, baiting them into the open, until working his curse on them. Demons, while often cunning, did not have much restraint when executing a plan such as that. They ate men’s hearts and did away with their carcasses in gruesome bloody manners. Others did take souls, but not before taking a bite of flesh, desecrating the bodies into the afterlife—so the stories went.

He narrowed his eyes as the mare he rode on swayed in one direction. The man continued to walk, his legs tangling themselves with each step he took.

_Not...a demon, _Bakura surmised.

With the elimination of two of the worst possible outcomes, Bakura’s curiosity only grew, and confidence increased ever so slightly. He hadn’t forgotten about what this person was capable of, but if he wasn’t a ghost, or a demon, then what was he? Surely not something equally or more dangerous?

_Witch_ was one of the remaining possibilities Bakura dwelled on. It was what the soldier had accused him of—but Bakura himself had witnessed the man’s sudden appearance out of seemingly thin air in the middle of the underground temple, which made trying to catalogue him even more of a mystery. Unless Bakura’s senses had taken a serious downgraded turn recently in his life, he still couldn’t comprehend how it was possible for the man to be there at all. As far as he knew, witches were human, and their powers originated from various sources. Humans _did _possess the cunning necessary to deceive men. They could potentially, and easily, use unknown powers to deceive his senses without him knowing, as well.

But if this person was a witch, and thus human by default, it meant Bakura could _persuade_ him into lifting a curse.

Bakura eased closer to him until his shadow was cast on the ground the stranger stood on. The horse let down its hoof, indicating them both of Bakura’s presence.

The footsteps stopped.

Bakura swayed on his seat with the steed’s in-place trots. He held the reins in his hands until she stopped and stood as immobile as the figure below. Bakura waited, his throat refusing to speak. The knife stuck to his skin using his sweat as adhesive.

The ground coiled with an invisible trail of wind. Bakura still hadn’t forgotten the soldier’s faces—the possible outcome of the whole chase into the desert. He swallowed.

“You—” His voice sounded hoarse, like gravel, when he spoke. His nerves were still tense. He cleared his throat.

“Ahead.” There was a slight hesitation in his words, but he continued when his animal companion shook her head. “Did you kill those men?” The knife slid along the waist of his shendyt as he shifted in his position. He was satisfied at how little his voice wavered compared to the first time. The hood on his head sheltering him from the sun stirred with the wind. He put a hand on it and pulled it back just enough to see the man below clearly.

When the man didn’t answer, and when his body continued to remain motionless, Bakura thought maybe he hadn’t heard him. Their lack of response was unnatural; it unnerved him. Anyone normal would have turned and confronted him already. He motioned his steed closer, rounding them until Bakura was in front of the strange person.

His heart had begun to flutter around in his chest, and Bakura chalked it up to an understandable fear. He didn’t have the luxury, though, of turning around and bolting when he’d already come this far. He had been the one to pursue, and escaping after only a quick glance of the man wasn’t on his list of priorities.

“What are you?” he said in an almost curiosity-driven voicing of his thoughts. He looked down his nose at the other, taking in their slim physique, the odd clothing, the white hair. Staring at the crown of their lowered head, Bakura almost missed the gesture of movement.

The lift of his face was slow and deliberate, given how Bakura had seen him blink, once, twice, while holding his pair of bound hands to his chest. He watched how slender fingers curled in, how the pair of lips moved, muttering something inaudible, how the shake of his head disturbed his strands of pale hair.

Bakura heard no further response from him, so he raked his eyes down the length of him for answers. He absorbed the man’s strange attire, how the sand stuck to the fabric covering his legs, the milky color of his skin—eyes lingering on the blood clinging to the corners of his mouth.

He swallowed again at the sight, heart stammering.

As Bakura kept his glance on his mouth, the man’s lips moved again, and Bakura saw teeth. Unable to hear any sounds from them, Bakura lifted his gaze, and in that subtle movement, his stare was caught by a pair of eyes. He wasn’t fast enough to look away from them, and stared right back. As the guard had mentioned, the pair of eyes that landed on him were—green.

He gaped. The dry wind of the desert suddenly suffocating him let Bakura know his mouth had fallen open. He shut it closed, inadvertently swallowing particles of sand that then tickled the back of his throat. He held his breath and puffed out his chest.

The stranger took a wobbly step towards him, and Bakura instinctively leaned back, expecting something to happen. The longer the man kept his gaze on him, the harder it was becoming for Bakura to breathe properly.

Between another gust of wind, the man’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth and out came gibberish spoken in a foreign tongue.

The string of words was indiscernible, and thinking it was an attempt at a second curse, Bakura shifted where he sat, prepared to jump off.

It was what the man uttered last, and kept repeating, that made Bakura stop still, and his blood run cold.

“—_Bakura—”_

He thought he had heard his name lodged between the man’s unfamiliar language.

When he made no answer to the name, the man said it again, the tone in his voice no longer urgent, but gentle, almost tender.

_“Bakura—”_

Bakura did not know if that coaxing timbre in his voice made it worse.

His breath hitched and the hair on his arms stood on end. _He_ knew his name. His hands coiled around the reins of the horse until his knuckles were white. His legs around the horse were stiff, ready to kick at the sides of it at any moment.

The stranger’s mouth curved into a smile, and his foot sunk in the sand with another step.

Ready to defend himself, Bakura dropped the reins in his grasp and reached for the knife. It had been out of sheer desperation that he’d resorted to _that_ primitive choice of defense instead, but he hadn’t time for anything else. When he sensed an increased pace from the other in his direction, Bakura almost jumped off his vantage point—and then his survival instinct went immediately flat.

The man’s legs tangled. The green of his eyes turned white and the lids over them closed.

He collapsed in a heap face down, posing no threat at all, and leaving Bakura high strung and full of adrenaline.

He stared, his heart racing in his chest, and still reeling from the close encounter, from the idea that he had heard something that sounded like his own name tumble from the unknown man’s mouth. He breathed in, breathed out. His hand shook on the hilt of the weapon he had drawn. His eyes remained trained on the figure flat on the ground, pointing the trembling knife down at him.

There was no stir of movement. There was no sudden flash of magic.

There was only the frail living thing that had _smiled_ when he saw him.

Bakura lowered the quivering weapon, but did not let go.

And suddenly, just like that, he had no idea what kind of entity he was up against anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out the art for this fic by [mimibanii](https://mimibanii.tumblr.com/post/624189614881734658/got-commissioned-by-ikutos-to-draw-for-their-gem) ;w;/ it's absolutely wonderful 😭


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